Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Corie Barry: Again, I’m probably biased, but I don’t think it’s purely a function of price. I think we’ve been very clear, we have to be price competitive, and that is one of the base tentpoles of our strategy. And that said, we also, I think, have a team that has a proven track record of very adept promotional planning around key drive times, whether that’s some of the secondary holidays or whether it’s the main holiday that we’re headed into. So I kind of think of price as the like primary tentpole. But in order to differentiate, I think what we’re doubling down on is what we do, that is different than anyone else just given who we are. We are agnostic to the customer. So we don’t care what the operating system is or who makes the hardware.

We’re there for the customer to help them to build on that. We have what we like to call human-enabled services. So we can help you in the store. We can consult for you in your home. We can repair. We can take back. We can trade in. You can buy open box. You can go to an outlet. Like, we just have the huge end-to-end variety of solutions all the way from inspire to support, so that’s the kind of second differentiator for us. And then third, I think we’re building on those things with a unique membership program with unique offers that reach out to our members with a membership program that’s based on the things that we uniquely do well. And then fourth, I have to give major credit to our vendor partners as well, even though we’re in a little bit of a slower innovation cycle, they remain closely committed to our success, which means we do have everything from the most new beautiful 98-inch TV that’s out on the floor, all the way to those opening price point Chromebooks or opening price point televisions that might be right for you at a value play.

And I think our ability to showcase those high and new experience as well as all the way through the rest of the assortment really is that last differentiating piece for us.

Jonathan Matuszewski: That’s great color. Thanks so much. And then a quick follow-up on Best Buy Health. You’ve had some exciting announcements on that side of the business in terms of partnerships in the industry. At the Investor Day, I think you called out expectations for that to grow at a CAGR of an impressive 40% over the next couple of years. Is that business at scale to switch from kind of dilution to accretion in terms of the overall enterprise next year? Any thoughts there would be helpful.

Corie Barry: Yeah. So we remain really excited about the Health business, and we were pretty clear that we had pulled the FY ’25 targets on the whole or as the macro backdrop has changed. And so we are, of course, working behind the scenes to really fortify that business for the future. And I know someone had asked earlier as we think about the puts and takes for next year, we would continue to expect Health to become more accretive, and we laid that out as kind of our structural thesis at our Investor Day. And that part of the thesis remains true for us. And while it still is relatively small at this point, we are seeing some nice uptick, particularly in that kind of care-at-home side of things, where we’ve announced partnerships with Geisinger and with Atrium Health as we think about how we can use our unique Geek Squad assets as well as the unique product assortment that we have to help deliver care at home.

So again, relatively small, but the team is doing a nice job continuing to ensure that, that part of the business is accretive and grows over time.

Jonathan Matuszewski: Thanks so much.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steven Forbes of Guggenheim. Your line is open.

Steven Forbes: Good morning, Corie, Matt.

Corie Barry: Good morning.

Steven Forbes: Matt, you briefly mentioned 15 to 20 basis points of vendor funding being recorded in expenses. Curious if you can maybe give us a little more color there? And then any sort of different way of thinking about how vendor funding maybe supports the margin outlook for 2024? Or are you changing the 2024 margin color of being able to hold margin in a flat sales environment, any update there?

Matt Bilunas: Sure. Yeah. So first of all, it was $15 million to $20 million of impact on net basis points, just to make sure I’m clear. And that would carry on as you get into next quarter Q4 and the first part of next year. And this is strictly a geography. There is no change to the overall financial statements, if you will, just moving as a cost — offsetting a cost of sales to offsetting SG&A. Essentially, we get any number of types of vendor funding for a number of different things. And when we can actually be more specific with the funding, matching and offsetting the specific cost, we then record that as an offset to SG&A versus offsetting cost of sales. So that’s specifically what’s happened. And it’s just — it’s part of the funding that we get not all of it, obviously.