Best Buy sees solid second quarter on rising demand for wearables

[May 23, 2019]  (Reuters) - Best Buy Co Inc forecast second-quarter sales and profit above estimates on Thursday, as the consumer electronics retailer saw strong demand for wearables and tablets and signed up more people to its subscription-based tech support services.

However, the company kept its full-year forecast unchanged, even after a strong first quarter, taking into account a potential impact from the recently imposed U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

Best Buy's shares rose 3.3% to $70.48 in premarket trade.

The company's overall same-store sales rose 1.1% in the quarter. Analysts on average had expected a 0.9% increase, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

It forecast adjusted profit for the second quarter to be in the range of $0.95 to $1 per share, above Wall Street expectations of $0.96 per share. The company also forecast current quarter same-store sales largely above estimates.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned $1.02 per share in the first quarter ended May 4, ahead of analysts' average estimate of 86 cents per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Total revenue rose to $9.14 billion from $9.11 billion, in line with analysts' expectation.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Arun Koyyur)

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