Best Buy (BBY) Q3 2026 Results

Best buy raised its full-year forecast Tuesday as it beat Wall Street’s quarterly sales expectations and customers turned to the retailer to upgrade laptops and splurge on new gaming consoles and smartphones.

The consumer electronics retailer said it now expects revenue between $41.65 billion and $41.95 billion for the full year, higher than its previous range of $41.1 billion to $41.9 billion. It expects adjusted earnings per share of between $6.25 and $6.35, compared with a prior range of $6.15 to $6.30.

Best Buy said it expects its full-year comparable sales, a metric that tracks sales online and at stores open at least 14 months, to range between a 0.5% increase and a 1.2% increase, compared with its previous expectations of a 1% decrease and 1% increase.

During the company’s earnings call, CEO Corie Barry said Best Buy reported “better than expected” sales in the quarter due to strong results in computing, gaming and mobile, as well as growth in wearables and headphones. She said sales had increased both on her website and in her stores.

She said customer purchasing behavior over the past three months has been about the same as what Best Buy has seen over the past few quarters.

“Customers remain resilient, but focused on transactions and drawn to more predictable sales times,” like Best Buy’s back-to-school sales and October sales that coincided with Amazon’s Prime Day event, she said.

And she said: “Although customers continue to consider large purchases in the current environment, they are willing to spend on high-priced products when they need them or when there is technological innovation. »

Here’s how the retailer performed for the three months ended Nov. 1, compared to what Wall Street expected, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: $1.40 adjusted versus $1.31 expected
• Income: $9.67 billion versus $9.59 billion expected

Shares were up about 6% Tuesday afternoon. As of Monday’s close, Best Buy’s stock is down about 12% this year. That compares to the S&P 500’s 14% gains over the same period.

Best Buy was expecting some of the key catalysts that tend to boost its business, such as higher housing turnover that leads to the purchase of appliances, technological innovations that drive demand for appliances and expert advice, and the increased willingness of inflation-weary consumers to splurge on discretionary items.

Some of this technological innovation appears to be gaining momentum with sales of the Nintendo Switch 2, new iPhones and AI-enabled laptops. The company called these merchandise categories strong points over the past three months.

Best Buy’s net income for the fiscal third quarter fell to $140 million, or 66 cents per share, from net income of $273 million, or $1.26 per share, for the year-ago period. Including one-time items including stock-based compensation and restructuring charges, Best Buy reported a profit of $1.40.

Revenue increased from $9.45 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Best Buy’s comparable sales increased 2.7% year over year. It was the company’s strongest comparable sales growth in four years, Barry said.

In the United States, the indicator jumped 2.4%, as shoppers bought computers, gaming systems and mobile phones, but bought fewer appliances and home theaters.

Best Buy’s annual revenue has fallen over the past three years. With this updated forecast, the company expects its annual revenue to be slightly higher than last year’s total of $41.53 billion.

Still, like other retailers, Best Buy said it continues to see shoppers spending selectively and looking for value, and expects that to continue through the holiday season, Barry said on a call with reporters.

“We absolutely see people compromising,” she said.

For example, she said, some customers buy TVs in the middle or lower end of her price range rather than high-end TVs. However, she said Best Buy’s reputation as a specialty retailer with many different brands and price points helps it attract more younger and lower-income customers.

As the holiday season heats up, Barry said the company is ready for key sales days like Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday and will offer “deals across the spectrum for every time people want to shop.”

Still, the retailer gave a cautious outlook for the holiday quarter, saying it expects sales trends to slow compared to the previous quarter. Bilunas said the company expects comparable sales during the period to range from a 1% decrease to a 1% increase.

During the company’s earnings call, he said Best Buy saw “positive growth” in the fourth quarter and trended roughly similar to the third quarter, but faced tougher year-over-year comparisons and could see declining trends in some categories like gaming and wearables. In gaming, Nintendo Switch 2 sales weren’t as strong because they were closer to the June launch.

“Obviously, vacations are never easy to predict,” he said. “What we believe is that we have a range of scenarios and the range that we have proposed gives us a great place to operationally plan and plan our activities.”

Rising tariffs will be a complicating factor for the rest of the year, both in how they affect business costs and consumer spending. During the company’s earnings conference call, Bilunas said that so far, the higher tariffs have not had a significant impact on Best Buy’s prices or sales. He said the growth came from an increase in unit sales.

Compared to other sectors, he said, consumer electronics is a highly promotional category, which lessens its impact on average selling prices.

At Best Buy stores, the company has tried to give customers more reasons to try products by adding more vendor demonstrations, Barry said during the company’s earnings conference call. For example, it said more than 50 of its locations have immersive demonstration spaces for Meta’s latest AI-enabled glasses, and demand for in-person demonstrations has outpaced available appointments.

It launched most of its pilot showrooms with Ikea, which it is testing in 10 stores in Texas and Florida. And other sellers, including Breville and Sharkninja, also feature items aimed at baristas and home chefs or customers looking for health and beauty devices in their stores, she said.

Barry said “early readings are positive and we’re excited to monitor customer response over the holidays.”

To help drive growth, Best Buy also launched a third-party marketplace in mid-August to expand the brands and items it sells. About three months after launch, the company has more than 1,000 sellers and 11 times more individual items available to customers online than before, Barry said on the earnings call.

So far, she said the company has seen higher sales in categories such as accessories and small appliances. She said customer return rates for Marketplace items were lower than for first-party purchases, and more than 80% of Marketplace product returns by customers took place in stores.

As the market grows, she said it generates higher profits and creates new opportunities for Best Buy to sell online ads.

Despite the positive signs, some Best Buy categories, including appliances, continue to lag.

Chief Financial Officer Matt Bilunas said the appliance category is “probably the most challenging we have in the market today.” He said that historically the company has sold new, high-end devices and device bundles.

With the housing market slowing, he said the company is seeing more buyers replacing a broken product rather than buying a pair of washer and dryers, and promotions haven’t been as effective. To speed up sales, Best Buy plans to increase labor in the department, speed up deliveries to better compete with competitors and even make some items available the same day, he said.

“And I hope that as housing and other things change, the market will start to return to something that might be a little more normal,” he said.