Best Buy Calls Apple Watch 'Iconic'; Will Roll Out Smartwatch To All 1,000 US Locations

The Apple Watch has been such a massive success for Best Buy that the consumer electronics giant is planning to sell the smartwatch in all of its stores nationwide. The watch has only been on sale in Best Buy since early August at a limited number of locations, but the company has already decided to roll it out everywhere based on current demand.

Best Buy currently sells the watch at 100 stores and will expand this to 1,000 stores by the end of September.

"I think we can all agree the Apple Watch is certainly iconic and having it in all 1,000 stores by the end of September is a big deal for us," said Sharon L. McCollam, chief financial officer at Best Buy, in the company's Q2 2016 earnings call on Tuesday. Earnings came in at 46 cents per share, up from 42 cents a year earlier. Revenues increased to $8.53 billion, up from $8.46 billion. Best Buy's earning report exceeded expectations, leading to a jump of more than 12 percent in the stock price.

The company also announced that the stores-within-a-store will be updated in cooperation with Apple. These provide an outlet for Apple products, in collaboration with the company, that better display the products. The fixtures will have larger tables for more devices and play an important role in Best Buy's Apple Watch strategy. There are currently 740 of these, and Best Buy plans to update 520 of them by the holidays.

Apple is estimated to have sold from 3 million to 5 million watches in the June quarter. Specifics were not given in its Q3 2015 earnings report, but the company's "other" category, which includes the watch, soared 49 percent year-over-year to $2.6 billion.