Best Buy (BBY)
Sells consumer electronics and appliances through stores, e-commerce, and Geek Squad services.
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Best Buy sells other companies' gadgets — computers, phones, televisions, washing machines — in its stores and on its website, keeping a thin slice of each sale. After three shrinking years the sales line has steadied. The change worth watching sits off to the side: the chain now charges its own suppliers for ad space, lets outside sellers list goods alongside its own, and sells memberships.
Item facts: FY2026 · year ended Jan 31, 2026, from filings, earnings calls and company pages.
Judgment weights, not filed revenue
The band summarizes business focus and direction. ~ marks estimates.
8 in detail · 15 more below
Computing and Mobile Phones
Laptops, phones, tablets and wearables — almost half of everything Best Buy sells, and the line leading its return to growth. Watch prices: memory costs pushed computing tickets up mid-teens last quarter while units fell, and the upgrade wave laps itself in the second half.
Competes with Amazon.com computing (Amazon) · Apple Store and apple.com (Apple) · Carrier phone stores (Verizon)
In plain English
The wall of laptops, the phone counter, the tablets and smartwatches. Best Buy buys all of it outright from the people who make it, puts it on a shelf, and keeps the difference when someone walks out with one. The difference is thin, so volume is everything — and five suppliers, Apple, Samsung, HP, LG and Sony, account for roughly half of what the chain buys.
Phones pay twice: when a shopper signs up with a carrier in the store, the carrier pays a commission on top. Most demand is simply people replacing what they already own, which is why an old version of Windows losing support showed up directly in sales.
Consumer Electronics
Televisions, soundbars, headphones, cameras and smart-home gear — a quarter of sales, shrinking every year until last quarter, when home theater was the second-biggest growth driver and TVs rose more than 10%. New RGB LED sets are still early; management calls their effect mostly halo.
Competes with Home theater and audio (Amazon) · TV aisle and VIZIO (Walmart) · TV assortment (Costco)
In plain English
Televisions and the speakers that go under them, plus cameras, headphones, fitness gear and the gadgets that run a house.
Two streams of money. Best Buy owns the sets and keeps a slice of each one it sells, and the brands — LG, TCL, Hisense and others — pay for floor space and for trained staff to stand in it. Underneath everything sits a clock: the industry sold roughly forty-nine million televisions in 2020, and a television bought then is now old. Each year's worth of that fleet coming due is a year of demand, which is how a category can shrink three years running and then turn.
Entertainment
Games and consoles, drones, toys, VR headsets and trading cards — the only merchandise line besides services to grow last year. Traditional gaming fell last quarter while newer arrivals like trading cards more than doubled off a small base. Grand Theft Auto VI should help the holiday quarter.
Competes with Game and console stores (GameStop) · Video game storefront (Amazon) · PlayStation Store downloads (Sony)
In plain English
The fad shelf. Consoles and the discs that go in them, drones, toys, virtual-reality headsets, the new AI glasses, packs of trading cards — the smallest merchandise line and the one where new things land first.
Best Buy buys the boxes and keeps a margin on each, as it does everywhere else in the store. The leak is that games increasingly arrive as downloads bought straight from the console maker, so the disc, and the trip to fetch it, quietly disappear. What has partly replaced them is stranger stock: trading-card packs and AI glasses, a group whose sales more than doubled last quarter off a very small base.
Appliances
Washers, fridges, ovens and dishwashers, plus blenders and vacuums. The steepest faller in the store, down about a third in three years; last quarter's slight growth was bought by cutting prices, and the profit on each sale fell with it.
Competes with Appliance aisle (Lowe's) · Appliance department (Home Depot) · Appliance assortment (Costco)
In plain English
None of this fits in a shopping bag. Refrigerators, washing machines, ovens and dishwashers — plus the blenders and vacuums on the small-appliance shelf — are only really sold once two people have carried the thing up the stairs and plumbed it in.
So delivery is the business. Best Buy has widened next-day availability to almost all of its metro delivery areas, up from under half earlier this year, and has been cutting prices to pull shoppers back; traffic improves and the profit on each sale pays for it. The harder fact is the channel: home-improvement chains sell most of the country's big appliances, with Lowe's alone around two-fifths of the units.
Services (Geek Squad, protection, installation)
Installing, fixing, delivering and insuring the things Best Buy sells — the only category to grow every single year, from $2.33B to $2.66B since FY2023. Management expects services and memberships to leave profit rates unchanged this year, so growth has to come from volume.
Competes with Device protection plans (Asurion) · AppleCare+ and the Genius Bar (Apple) · Appliance install service (Lowe's)
In plain English
Somebody has to mount the television, set up the laptop, and take the call when it stops working. That crew is Geek Squad, and the protection plan sold at the till is a promise to fix or replace the thing if it breaks.
Customers pay for each job, and the plans attach to the hardware at the moment it is bought. This line has grown every year, which no merchandise line can say — but all of it rides on that hardware: no television sold, no television to mount. Best Buy also takes a share of the profit on the store credit card that Citi issues — a figure that has swung between help and drag.
Best Buy Ads
Best Buy rents out attention — slots on its website, banners in its app, screens inside the stores — mostly to the suppliers already on its shelves. Just over $900 million came in last year, guided toward $1 billion: tiny beside Amazon's ad business, large beside Best Buy's profit.
Competes with Amazon Ads (Amazon) · Walmart Connect (Walmart) · Roundel (Target)
In plain English
Every shopper who walks the aisles or scrolls the app passes places that can be sold twice — once as a product, once as a spot worth being seen in. Best Buy now charges for the spot: a slot on the page being browsed, a banner in the app, a screen it already owns inside the store, sometimes an ad placed on another website entirely.
The buyers are mostly the brands already on those shelves. They are paying for something that costs Best Buy almost nothing to supply, which is the whole point — just over nine hundred million dollars came in last year, and most of it never appears as sales. It comes off what Best Buy paid for the goods instead.
Best Buy Marketplace
Outside sellers list goods Best Buy does not stock — cookware, furniture, seasonal and licensed sports goods — and Best Buy keeps a commission. Launched August 2025 and guided to move about $1.3 billion of goods this year. Growth compresses once it laps its own launch.
Competes with Amazon Marketplace (Amazon) · Target Plus (Target) · Walmart Marketplace (Walmart)
In plain English
A shop can only stock so much. So Best Buy opened its website to outside sellers — cookware, small kitchen gear, furniture, seasonal and licensed sports goods — who list their own items, hold their own inventory and ship their own orders. Best Buy takes a cut of each sale and risks no money on stock that might not move.
It began in August 2025 and should move roughly $1.3 billion of goods this year, of which only the commission is Best Buy's. Amazon has run this playbook at a scale no other retailer approaches, and Target's version reached a similar size about a year earlier.
My Best Buy Memberships
Free, about $30 a year, or $200 a year for the tier bundling Apple protection, round-the-clock support, member pricing and a longer return window. Roughly eight million paid members as of May 2026, and the dues are not expected to lift profit rates this year.
Competes with Amazon Prime (Amazon) · Walmart+ (Walmart) · Target Circle 360 (Target)
In plain English
An annual fee that changes what a shopper gets: member-only prices, points back on what you spend, a longer window to send things back, and at the top tier a protection plan covering Apple products, help on the phone at any hour, and a television streaming package thrown in.
Two paid tiers — about thirty dollars a year, or two hundred — with roughly eight million households on one of them. The dues are counted alongside the rest of the services money, and they are not where this year's extra profit comes from. Everyone Best Buy competes with sells a version of the same card: Prime, Walmart+, Target Circle 360.
Computing and Mobile PhonesLaptops, phones, tablets and wearables — almost half of everything Best Buy sells, and the line leading its return to growth. Watch prices: memory costs pushed computing tickets up mid-teens last quarter while units fell, and the upgrade wave laps itself in the second half.Laptops, phones, tablets and wearables — almost half of everything Best Buy sells, and the line leading its return to growth. Watch prices: memory costs pushed computing tickets up mid-teens last quarter while units fell, and the upgrade wave laps itself in the second half.
In plain English
The wall of laptops, the phone counter, the tablets and smartwatches. Best Buy buys all of it outright from the people who make it, puts it on a shelf, and keeps the difference when someone walks out with one. The difference is thin, so volume is everything — and five suppliers, Apple, Samsung, HP, LG and Sony, account for roughly half of what the chain buys.
Phones pay twice: when a shopper signs up with a carrier in the store, the carrier pays a commission on top. Most demand is simply people replacing what they already own, which is why an old version of Windows losing support showed up directly in sales.
Competes with Amazon.com computing (Amazon) · Apple Store and apple.com (Apple) · Carrier phone stores (Verizon)
Consumer ElectronicsTelevisions, soundbars, headphones, cameras and smart-home gear — a quarter of sales, shrinking every year until last quarter, when home theater was the second-biggest growth driver and TVs rose more than 10%. New RGB LED sets are still early; management calls their effect mostly halo.Televisions, soundbars, headphones, cameras and smart-home gear — a quarter of sales, shrinking every year until last quarter, when home theater was the second-biggest growth driver and TVs rose more than 10%. New RGB LED sets are still early; management calls their effect mostly halo.
In plain English
Televisions and the speakers that go under them, plus cameras, headphones, fitness gear and the gadgets that run a house.
Two streams of money. Best Buy owns the sets and keeps a slice of each one it sells, and the brands — LG, TCL, Hisense and others — pay for floor space and for trained staff to stand in it. Underneath everything sits a clock: the industry sold roughly forty-nine million televisions in 2020, and a television bought then is now old. Each year's worth of that fleet coming due is a year of demand, which is how a category can shrink three years running and then turn.
Competes with Home theater and audio (Amazon) · TV aisle and VIZIO (Walmart) · TV assortment (Costco)
EntertainmentGames and consoles, drones, toys, VR headsets and trading cards — the only merchandise line besides services to grow last year. Traditional gaming fell last quarter while newer arrivals like trading cards more than doubled off a small base. Grand Theft Auto VI should help the holiday quarter.Games and consoles, drones, toys, VR headsets and trading cards — the only merchandise line besides services to grow last year. Traditional gaming fell last quarter while newer arrivals like trading cards more than doubled off a small base. Grand Theft Auto VI should help the holiday quarter.
In plain English
The fad shelf. Consoles and the discs that go in them, drones, toys, virtual-reality headsets, the new AI glasses, packs of trading cards — the smallest merchandise line and the one where new things land first.
Best Buy buys the boxes and keeps a margin on each, as it does everywhere else in the store. The leak is that games increasingly arrive as downloads bought straight from the console maker, so the disc, and the trip to fetch it, quietly disappear. What has partly replaced them is stranger stock: trading-card packs and AI glasses, a group whose sales more than doubled last quarter off a very small base.
Competes with Game and console stores (GameStop) · Video game storefront (Amazon) · PlayStation Store downloads (Sony)
AppliancesWashers, fridges, ovens and dishwashers, plus blenders and vacuums. The steepest faller in the store, down about a third in three years; last quarter's slight growth was bought by cutting prices, and the profit on each sale fell with it.Washers, fridges, ovens and dishwashers, plus blenders and vacuums. The steepest faller in the store, down about a third in three years; last quarter's slight growth was bought by cutting prices, and the profit on each sale fell with it.
In plain English
None of this fits in a shopping bag. Refrigerators, washing machines, ovens and dishwashers — plus the blenders and vacuums on the small-appliance shelf — are only really sold once two people have carried the thing up the stairs and plumbed it in.
So delivery is the business. Best Buy has widened next-day availability to almost all of its metro delivery areas, up from under half earlier this year, and has been cutting prices to pull shoppers back; traffic improves and the profit on each sale pays for it. The harder fact is the channel: home-improvement chains sell most of the country's big appliances, with Lowe's alone around two-fifths of the units.
Competes with Appliance aisle (Lowe's) · Appliance department (Home Depot) · Appliance assortment (Costco)
Services (Geek Squad, protection, installation)Installing, fixing, delivering and insuring the things Best Buy sells — the only category to grow every single year, from $2.33B to $2.66B since FY2023. Management expects services and memberships to leave profit rates unchanged this year, so growth has to come from volume.Installing, fixing, delivering and insuring the things Best Buy sells — the only category to grow every single year, from $2.33B to $2.66B since FY2023. Management expects services and memberships to leave profit rates unchanged this year, so growth has to come from volume.
In plain English
Somebody has to mount the television, set up the laptop, and take the call when it stops working. That crew is Geek Squad, and the protection plan sold at the till is a promise to fix or replace the thing if it breaks.
Customers pay for each job, and the plans attach to the hardware at the moment it is bought. This line has grown every year, which no merchandise line can say — but all of it rides on that hardware: no television sold, no television to mount. Best Buy also takes a share of the profit on the store credit card that Citi issues — a figure that has swung between help and drag.
Competes with Device protection plans (Asurion) · AppleCare+ and the Genius Bar (Apple) · Appliance install service (Lowe's)
Best Buy AdsBest Buy rents out attention — slots on its website, banners in its app, screens inside the stores — mostly to the suppliers already on its shelves. Just over $900 million came in last year, guided toward $1 billion: tiny beside Amazon's ad business, large beside Best Buy's profit.Best Buy rents out attention — slots on its website, banners in its app, screens inside the stores — mostly to the suppliers already on its shelves. Just over $900 million came in last year, guided toward $1 billion: tiny beside Amazon's ad business, large beside Best Buy's profit.
In plain English
Every shopper who walks the aisles or scrolls the app passes places that can be sold twice — once as a product, once as a spot worth being seen in. Best Buy now charges for the spot: a slot on the page being browsed, a banner in the app, a screen it already owns inside the store, sometimes an ad placed on another website entirely.
The buyers are mostly the brands already on those shelves. They are paying for something that costs Best Buy almost nothing to supply, which is the whole point — just over nine hundred million dollars came in last year, and most of it never appears as sales. It comes off what Best Buy paid for the goods instead.
Competes with Amazon Ads (Amazon) · Walmart Connect (Walmart) · Roundel (Target)
Best Buy MarketplaceOutside sellers list goods Best Buy does not stock — cookware, furniture, seasonal and licensed sports goods — and Best Buy keeps a commission. Launched August 2025 and guided to move about $1.3 billion of goods this year. Growth compresses once it laps its own launch.Outside sellers list goods Best Buy does not stock — cookware, furniture, seasonal and licensed sports goods — and Best Buy keeps a commission. Launched August 2025 and guided to move about $1.3 billion of goods this year. Growth compresses once it laps its own launch.
In plain English
A shop can only stock so much. So Best Buy opened its website to outside sellers — cookware, small kitchen gear, furniture, seasonal and licensed sports goods — who list their own items, hold their own inventory and ship their own orders. Best Buy takes a cut of each sale and risks no money on stock that might not move.
It began in August 2025 and should move roughly $1.3 billion of goods this year, of which only the commission is Best Buy's. Amazon has run this playbook at a scale no other retailer approaches, and Target's version reached a similar size about a year earlier.
Competes with Amazon Marketplace (Amazon) · Target Plus (Target) · Walmart Marketplace (Walmart)
My Best Buy MembershipsFree, about $30 a year, or $200 a year for the tier bundling Apple protection, round-the-clock support, member pricing and a longer return window. Roughly eight million paid members as of May 2026, and the dues are not expected to lift profit rates this year.Free, about $30 a year, or $200 a year for the tier bundling Apple protection, round-the-clock support, member pricing and a longer return window. Roughly eight million paid members as of May 2026, and the dues are not expected to lift profit rates this year.
In plain English
An annual fee that changes what a shopper gets: member-only prices, points back on what you spend, a longer window to send things back, and at the top tier a protection plan covering Apple products, help on the phone at any hour, and a television streaming package thrown in.
Two paid tiers — about thirty dollars a year, or two hundred — with roughly eight million households on one of them. The dues are counted alongside the rest of the services money, and they are not where this year's extra profit comes from. Everyone Best Buy competes with sells a version of the same card: Prime, Walmart+, Target Circle 360.
Competes with Amazon Prime (Amazon) · Walmart+ (Walmart) · Target Circle 360 (Target)
Named in filings, launches and programs
- International Segment (Canada)SegmentCanada: 142 stores plus bestbuy.ca, about 8% of sales, keeping less profit on each sale than the US stores — and sales slipped last quarter while the US grew.
- Best Buy BusinessCustomer programSells to schools, hotels, builders, health care and companies, mostly computing and home theater with Geek Squad attached; revenue undisclosed, up 21% last quarter.
- My Best Buy Credit CardCustomer programIssued by Citi and paying members 6% back at Best Buy; the profit share Best Buy earns on it has swung between help and drag.
- InsigniaBrandBest Buy's own-label electronics brand, one of two exclusive labels named in the FY2026 annual report.
- Best Buy EssentialsBrandThe other house label named in the FY2026 annual report alongside Insignia.
- Pacific Sales / Pacific Kitchen and HomeBrandTwenty premium appliance showrooms under their own banner — the upmarket end of the appliance business.
- YardbirdBrandOutdoor furniture bought as a stand-alone chain; its own stores went from 23 to 2 and the range moved into shop-in-shops.
- Outlet CentersProduct lineEighteen US outlets as of late 2025 with four more opened this year, selling open-box and clearance goods; clearance also consolidated online.
- TechLiquidatorsPlatformThe channel for moving returned and surplus stock back out in bulk rather than writing it off.
- Best Buy Express (Canada)BrandA Canadian banner carrying the name but leased and operated by Bell Canada; its stores sit outside Best Buy's own store count.
- Best Buy MobileBrandTwenty-eight stand-alone phone stores in Canada, plus phone departments inside the larger stores.
- Meta Lab @ Best BuyCustomer program · RampingMeta-branded shop-in-shops of about 900 square feet, rolling into more than 50 US stores since June 2026, with hundreds more locations identified.
- ChatGPT shopping integrationEcosystem · RampingShoppers can now discover, compare and buy Best Buy products inside ChatGPT; Google was named as an AI partner too.
- Smaller-format storesProduct line · RampingA smaller store format for new towns, including one of roughly 15,000 square feet in Bozeman, while twelve large Utah stores closed this year.
- "Other" merchandiseProduct lineBaby gear, food and drink, outdoor living — the leftovers line, $300 million, under 1% of sales.
International Segment (Canada)Segment
Canada: 142 stores plus bestbuy.ca, about 8% of sales, keeping less profit on each sale than the US stores — and sales slipped last quarter while the US grew.
Best Buy BusinessCustomer program
Sells to schools, hotels, builders, health care and companies, mostly computing and home theater with Geek Squad attached; revenue undisclosed, up 21% last quarter.
My Best Buy Credit CardCustomer program
Issued by Citi and paying members 6% back at Best Buy; the profit share Best Buy earns on it has swung between help and drag.
InsigniaBrand
Best Buy's own-label electronics brand, one of two exclusive labels named in the FY2026 annual report.
Best Buy EssentialsBrand
The other house label named in the FY2026 annual report alongside Insignia.
Pacific Sales / Pacific Kitchen and HomeBrand
Twenty premium appliance showrooms under their own banner — the upmarket end of the appliance business.
YardbirdBrand
Outdoor furniture bought as a stand-alone chain; its own stores went from 23 to 2 and the range moved into shop-in-shops.
Outlet CentersProduct line
Eighteen US outlets as of late 2025 with four more opened this year, selling open-box and clearance goods; clearance also consolidated online.
TechLiquidatorsPlatform
The channel for moving returned and surplus stock back out in bulk rather than writing it off.
Best Buy Express (Canada)Brand
A Canadian banner carrying the name but leased and operated by Bell Canada; its stores sit outside Best Buy's own store count.
Best Buy MobileBrand
Twenty-eight stand-alone phone stores in Canada, plus phone departments inside the larger stores.
Meta Lab @ Best BuyCustomer program · Ramping
Meta-branded shop-in-shops of about 900 square feet, rolling into more than 50 US stores since June 2026, with hundreds more locations identified.
ChatGPT shopping integrationEcosystem · Ramping
Shoppers can now discover, compare and buy Best Buy products inside ChatGPT; Google was named as an AI partner too.
Smaller-format storesProduct line · Ramping
A smaller store format for new towns, including one of roughly 15,000 square feet in Bozeman, while twelve large Utah stores closed this year.
"Other" merchandiseProduct line
Baby gear, food and drink, outdoor living — the leftovers line, $300 million, under 1% of sales.