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Jan. 11, 2010

Electronics retailer Best Buy says that smartphones and netbooks helped increase its Christmas and Holiday sales almost 13.1 percent to $8.5 billion.

Overall, TVs, laptops and digital imaging devices also added to the increase as well, although at a lesser extent.

In its latest earnings statement published Jan. 7, Best Buy said its U.S. division "continued to experience very strong market share gains" in November, a trend that continued throughout the month of December.

"We believe that these sales gains were most pronounced in categories deemed critical to our connected world strategy such as TVs, notebook computers, digital imaging and mobile phones," the company said in a statement.

Comparable store sales also rose almost 9.4 percent in the U.S. and 3.5 percent internationally.

U.S. sales accounted for $6.7 billion, while international sales hit just $1.8 billion.

Best Buy has moved very aggressively to cash in on pent-up consumer demand for smartphones and netbooks, opening 40 new standalone mobile phone stores in the 2009 fiscal year.

Last August, Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn said that his company can bring its share of the U.S. handset market to about 15 percent over the next several years.

Best Buy also owns Future Shop in Canada, but there's still no news from FSs' stores as of yet. As of Dec. 15, 2009, Future Shop had over 450 stores in Canada.

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Source: Best Buy.