Best Buy ( BBY ) reported a surprise sales decline in its key holiday shopping season.
Same-store sales fell 0.8% in the fourth quarter, the company said Tuesday. Wall Street had expected a 0.2% increase after two straight quarters of positive growth.
“We continue to see customers who are flexible, but they’re certainly deal-oriented,” Best Buy CEO Corey Berry told Yahoo Finance in a call with reporters.
Best Buy expects first-quarter same-store sales to return to growth, up 1%. Berry said more than 50% of its customers make more than $100,000 a year.
Revenue for the fourth quarter totaled $13.81 billion, short of Wall Street expectations of $13.88 billion, according to Bloomberg consensus data. Adjusted earnings per share rose to $2.61, exceeding the $2.46 the Street had forecast. Best Buy’s stock is down more than 30% in the past year, but is up more than 8% in early trading.
For the full year, revenue came in at $41.69 billion, just below Wall Street’s forecast of $41.76 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $6.43, $0.12 above Wall Street estimates for $6.31.
For the year, same-store sales rose 0.5%, less than the 0.9% increase Wall Street was looking for.
For 2027, the company expects revenue to come in between $41.2 billion and $42.1 billion, with same-store sales expected to fall in a range between a 1% decline and 1% increase for the year.
Adjusted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $6.30-$6.60.
This year, Best Buy is also seeing an increase in memory costs as increased demand affects supply. Berry said it’s “something that our industry has faced in the last 25 years, relatively speaking, at different peaks and valleys.”
She added that the team pulls in inventory, tries to provide long forecast horizons to its producers, works to find reasonable price points for consumers, and educates them about what’s available.
The team expects strength in computing and mobile phones to continue through 2026, after posting a move in the fourth quarter, up 5.4%.
