Best Buy’s president & CEO Hubert Joly, speaking on the company’s Q2 earnings call on August 23rd, told equity analysts that 4K and large-screen ‘home theatre’ sales performances were up year-on-year despite typical falls of around 30 per cent in the retail unit value of high-end TVs and related equipment.

Best Buy already has 79 “Magnolia Design Centre” premium retail areas in its stores, and during the quarter-year rolled out 376 new LG experiences, in addition to its existing 660 Samsung and 388 Sony ‘stores within stores’.

Joly reported that during this year it would also be piloting more ‘home advisor’ staff who would offer a free home consultation which would identify a customer’s needs and design a personalised solution.

Best Buy enjoyed (overall) sales of $8.53 billion (US revenues $7.9 billion, the balance from Canada and Mexico), and is anticipating revenue for Q3 in the $8.8-$8.9 billion range.

On the question of price erosion in the 4K space, CFO Corie Barry told analysts: “Price compression in 4K TV is not a new phenomenon. That is a phenomenon that’s been happening pretty strongly for the last eight quarters. We continue to factor that in, but the excitement and the accessibility that that drives for our customers is very exciting to us. Our ability to really help people understand the differentiated experiences in 4K in a really unique way in our stores we see as a definite advantage for us.

Categories: Articles, Equipment, UHD