Best Buy (BBY) earnings Q3 2025

Best buy on Tuesday cut its full-year sales forecast and missed Wall Street’s quarterly revenue expectations as early holiday shopping and a new batch of iPhones and AI-enabled laptops were not enough to drive higher sales.

The consumer electronics retailer said it now expects full-year revenue to range from $41.1 billion to $41.5 billion, compared with previous guidance of $41.3 billion to $41.9 billion. It expects full-year comparable sales to fall between 2.5% and 3.5%, compared with its previous expectations of a 1.5% to 3% decline. Comparative sales include sales online and in stores that have been open for at least 14 months.

Shares of Best Buy closed Tuesday at $88.48, down nearly 5%.

On an earnings call, CEO Corie Barry said the retailer experienced “softer than expected sales,” particularly in September and October.

“We attribute this to a combination of general persistent macro uncertainty, customers waiting for deals and sales and distraction in the run-up to the election, particularly in non-essential categories, (and) expected lower demand between sales events,” she said. “But the impact was even steeper than we had estimated.”

Barry added that demand has picked up again in recent weeks as holiday sales pick up and election worries subside. Still, Best Buy has tempered expectations for the holiday quarter.

The company expects comparable sales to range from flat to down 3% in its fiscal fourth quarter.

On a call with reporters, Barry said Best Buy is grappling with a few challenging dynamics, including a holiday season that’s five days shorter. She said shoppers respond to big deals and sales events. Still, she said it expects the peaks in sales during times like Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday to be higher, but the valleys before and after them to be lower.

Here’s what the retailer reported for its fiscal third quarter compared to what Wall Street expected, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG:

• Earnings per stock: $1.26 adjusted vs. Expected $1.29
• Revenues: $9.45 billion vs. $9.63 billion expected

In the three-month period ending Nov. 2. Best Buy’s net income rose to $273 million, or $1.26 per share, from $263 million, or $1.21 per share, a year earlier.

Net revenue fell to $9.45 billion from $9.76 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Best Buy is expecting a wave of shoppers to replace old devices and upgrade to new, high-tech ones after a roughly two-year sales decline in the consumer electronics category. A mix of factors have dragged down the retailer’s sales, including the surge in purchases of items such as laptops, home theater systems and kitchen appliances during the Covid pandemic; the pullback in discretionary purchases as Americans spent more on food and other necessities due to inflation; and switched back to spending on services, including travel and dining.

Over the past few quarters, CEO Barry and CFO Matt Bilunas have said they expect this year to be one that brings “increasing industry stabilization.” Barry has also talked about Best Buy’s expectation that new gadgets, including Apple’s fresh lineup of iPads as well as artificial intelligence-enabled laptops from Microsoft, will drive sales.

Still, the debut of those devices wasn’t enough to meaningfully lift Best Buy’s quarter. Comparable sales were down 2.9% across the business and down 2.8% in the US

Best Buy said weakness in appliance, home theater and gaming sales contributed to the comparable sales decline, but was partially offset by growth in computers, tablets and services category sales. The company offers services such as installing tech in customers’ homes.

Digital sales were also weak, falling 1% year over year in the US

Barry said on the earnings call that Best Buy is “seeing curiosity” about AI-enabled phones, but she said “a lot of that innovation is still ahead of us.” She said cell phone trends were down year-over-year but improved slightly compared to the second quarter.

“We’re just at the early stages — and I would say this broadly about AI in general,” she said.

Tariffs could also jeopardize Best Buy’s sales if they result in higher costs for the company and for customers. President-elect Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday that he would raise tariffs by another 10% on all Chinese goods and impose tariffs of 25% on imports from Mexico and Canada. On the campaign trail, he proposed rates that were even higher.

Barry said China accounts for the highest import volumes for items sold by Best Buy, followed by Mexico. She said the higher costs from tariffs would be shared by the company, suppliers and customers.

“These are goods that people need, and higher prices are not helpful,” she said.