Best Buy quarterly earnings preview

The largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S., Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY), will be reporting fourth quarter fiscal earnings tomorrow. Expectations are for the retailer to post about $1.52 EPS for the fourth period, followed by a full-year EPS figure of about $2.70 to $2.80. Best Buy is expanding from retailing into the service provider business as well, so things seem to be in full swing for the company right now, in stark contrast to retail competitor Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC).

In December, Best Buy reported strong sales of flat-panel TVs, video gaming equipment, MP3 players and notebook computers, with December sales coming in at $6.6 billion alone -- a 15% rise over the year-ago period. Just as competitor Circuit City is in somewhat dire straights with its profit (it's losing money) and employees (it's firing 3,500 of them to be replaced with lower-paid workers), Best Buy is on a much firmer footing here and should be fine for its recent fiscal fourth quarter.

Some analyst estimates state that Best Buy's sales for the most recent fiscal quarter to go up quite a bit, with one stating that "We look for total sales to increase 19 percent in the fourth quarter, to $12.8 billion, helped by an extra week." If Best Buy can meet that projection, it will be sitting pretty even as it released somber notes a few months ago by stating that prices of flat-panel televisions were falling so fast that the margins on them were vaporizing into thin air.