X Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy (BBY) on Thursday reported better-than-expected sales and earnings for its fiscal first quarter, shaking off concerns about the "retail apocalypse."
Richfield, Minn.-based Best Buy earned 60 cents a share excluding items, up 40% year over year, on sales of $8.53 billion, up 1%, for the quarter ended April 29. Same store sales rose 1.6%, reversing a year-earlier decline of 0.1%. Analysts expected Best Buy to earn 40 cents a share on sales of $8.28 billion in fiscal Q1.
Best Buy stock surged 18.5% to an all-time high of 59.73 in intraday trading on the stock market today. That eclipsed its previous record high of 59.50 from April 2006. In late morning trading, Best Buy was up 18%, near 59.50.
Best Buy stock broke out of a cup-with-handle pattern with a buy point of 49.45 on April 19.
"Our Q1 performance reflects the strength of our customer value proposition and continued momentum in the execution of our strategy," Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly said in a statement. "Compared to our expectations going into the quarter, our revenue was higher due to strong performance in gaming, a better-than-expected result in mobile, and the improvement of overall sales trends due to the arrival of delayed federal tax refund checks."
For the second quarter, Best Buy expects adjusted earnings per share of 57 to 62 cents, or about 60 cents at the midpoint. Analysts were modeling for 59 cents EPS.
Best Buy forecast Q2 revenue of $8.65 billion, up 1.4%, based on the midpoint of its guidance. Wall Street had been modeling for Q2 sales to dip 0.6% to $8.48 billion. Best Buy expects same-store sales growth in the range of 1.5% to 2.5%.
IBD'S TAKE: For an in-depth look into how Best Buy has rebounded vs. Amazon, check out 'The Top Dog Vs. The Big Threat," our in-depth Industry Snapshot on consumer electronics.
For the full fiscal year, Best Buy expects revenue growth of 2.5%. Wall Street had been looking for revenue growth of 1.2%.
Best Buy's strong first quarter performance comes amid talk of a "retail apocalypse" with stores struggling with a consumer shift to online shopping from Amazon.com (AMZN) and others.
Best Buy has been bulking up its U.S. online sales, which rose 22.5% year over year to $1.02 billion in Q1.
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