Black Friday - Best Buy Profits Up 52%

Minneapolis (MN) - Electronics retailer Best Buy has announced a massive 52% increase in third-quarter profits thanks in most part to Black Friday sales and an increase in GPS sales. The company reported that net income rose from $150 million last year to $228 million for this year’s third quarter. Revenue increased a healthy 17 percent to $9.9 billion.

Best Buy says GPS navigation units had the biggest gains, but that flat panel television sets were also popular with a double-digit percentage increase in sales. Interestingly enough, overall television sales remained flat because other types of television sets decreased in popularity.

New store openings also helped increase revenues and profits and in previous years Best Buy has aimed to open approximately 130 to 135 stores a year. It now plans on investing more than $900 million on new stores and wants to open 150 stores this coming year. Same store sales for the past year increased 6.7 percent.

Of course the lack of competition, namely the closing of CompUSA stores, probably also helped Best Buy.