Skip to main content

Best Buy to close down all 250 of its U.S. mobile phone stores

Best Buy Black Friday Deals
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Best Buy is closing all 250 of its U.S. mobile-phone stores by the end of May, 2018.

Despite predictions of growth in the smartphone market for this year after a lackluster 2017, the company has decided that the phone-focused stores provide little value to its broader business.

Recommended Videos

The 250 outlets are mostly located in shopping malls and are much smaller than its 1,000 big-box retail stores, which the company said will continue to sell handsets. The closures shouldn’t prove too inconvenient for most Best Buy shoppers as 85 percent of the phone stores are reportedly within three miles of one of its big-box sites.

For affected employees, however, the situation is far more troubling, though the company is promising to help with job searches before the stores close down.

In a letter to employees this week that’s been seen by Reuters, Best Buy chief executive Hubert Joly said that in the 10-plus years since the company opened the first of its smaller stores, “the mobile phone business has matured, margins have compressed, and the cost of operations in our mobile stand-alone stores is higher than in our big-box stores.”

With additional pressure coming from online marketplaces, Best Buy has worked to enhance its own online store in recent years in a bid to compete. Free shipping, price matching offers, and try-before-you-buy schemes have also been part of efforts to attract more customers.

When sales of phones and computers at Best Buy fell at the end of 2015, Joly pinned the blame on manufacturers for failing to bring exciting new devices to the market, which meant customers were reluctant to upgrade.

This year, however, analysts at IDC are forecasting market growth, though admittedly it’s developing markets that could see much of that extra business. IDC said changes and development in software and components will likely drive sales in the mobile marketplace in 2018.

“Improvements in speed, power, battery life, and general performance will be critical in driving growth at a worldwide level as the smartphone evolves into a true all-in-one tool,” IDC research manager Anthony Scarsella said.

Other data from Statista suggests the number of smartphone users in the U.S. will continue to grow in the coming years, with Best Buy believing its big-box stores are best placed to pick up some of that extra business in place of its struggling mobile-only stores.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
This quirky phone is still one of 2023’s best smartphone buys
A person holding the Nothing Phone 2, showing the back panel.

Nothing has not had the end to 2023 it perhaps hoped for — largely thanks to the Nothing Chats app turning into a debacle rather than a PR win. But what about its bread-and-butter tech product, the Nothing Phone 2?

Nothing made the right decision to launch its second smartphone in the U.S. earlier this year, and it was a real winner when we last spent time with it. But how does it fare after six months?
A fun piece of hardware

Read more
The best prepaid phone plans in 2023: the 6 best ones
5G logo on the Motorola Edge (2022).

There was once a time when prepaid cell phone plans meant getting only basic calling features and limited data. Thankfully, that’s changed. Many of today’s prepaid plans offer many of the same core features of the best cell postpaid phone plans, including high-speed 5G data, unlimited calling and texting, and even international roaming — all without the need to commit to a contract.

Not only that, but you can often find prepaid plans at far lower prices, even if you’re only setting up a single line. While traditional carrier plans give their best discounts for families and other groups, many prepaid plans lead with their best price right out of the gate.

Read more
Is the Nothing Phone 2 available in the U.S.?
The back of the Nothing Phone 2 with the lights activated.

Nothing has been growing in popularity ever since the launch of the Nothing Phone 1 last year, and now that the company is launching its second flagship smartphone — the Nothing Phone 2 — more people than ever before are itching to get their hands on a Nothing smartphone. While there was plenty to like about the Phone 1, the fact that it wasn't available in the U.S. at launch made it difficult to get the widespread attention that it deserved.

Now that the Nothing Phone 2 is here, however, U.S. fans are wondering if they're finally going to get their hands on it at launch or if it'll be regionally exclusive like its predecessor. The Nothing Phone 1 eventually made its way stateside, but it was far from a full-on launch and happened six months after the smartphone debuted for the rest of the world, so fans of the company are hoping that won't be the case with its successor.

Read more