Best Buy to Start Selling Apple's IPad Tablet in All U.S. Retail Stores
For Boomberg By Chris Burritt - Sep 14, 2010 3:08 PM CT
Best Buy Co., the world’s largest consumer-electronics retailer, plans to start selling Apple Inc.’s iPad in all of its U.S. stores on Sept. 26 to boost holiday sales, Chief Executive Officer Brian Dunn said.
Expanding iPad sales to 1,093 U.S. stores from 673 outlets reflects Best Buy’s efforts to capitalize on the growing popularity of tablet computers, Dunn said by telephone today from Richfield, Minnesota, where the company is based.
“We see the iPad as the magnificent shining light in what will become a whole new category, and that is tablets,” Dunn said. “In many cases, it’s an incremental device. In some cases, it’s a substitute device for netbooks. We think that’s going to stimulate a lot of customer interest.”
Apple sold 3.27 million iPads last quarter, spurring rival personal-computer makers to release similar devices. Hewlett- Packard Co. plans to make a tablet device with Microsoft Corp.’s Windows this year.
Higher demand for mobile computers, including tablets, helped boost Best Buy’s second-quarter profit by 61 percent to $254 million, or 60 cents a share, topping the average analysts’ estimate of 44 cents. It reported results for the quarter ended Aug. 28 today.
Best Buy climbed $2.08, or 6 percent, to $36.73 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the most in four months. The shares have slumped 6.9 percent this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Burritt in Greensboro, North Carolina, at cburritt@bloomberg.net.
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