Best Buy cruises to higher sales; a sign of the HD times
Not a big shocker here, but Best Buy just raised their earnings estimates to $1.30 a share from the previous guidance of $1.16.There's no question that HDTV and related item sales are all up and helping the bottom line at Best Buy, even if their HDTV ads are confusing. Don't take this as sound financial advice, but we saw 2006 as the year of HDTV and this can only help companies like Best Buy, Circuit City or the electronics retailer nearest you. Everything is finally coming together for a banner HDTV year, even if we still have some hurdles to jump.
Aside from the format war, we've got two next-generation DVD formats hitting the streets this year. High-definition gaming started before the year began, but we'll have a second HD gaming system out this year. Microsoft Vista and CableCARD support are slowly making progress, although we still have gripes about that. Streaming HD content is still a challenge, but at least it's possible. Topping it all off, we finally have a law to impose a DTV transition. Issues aside, if you add all of that up, what do you get? We figure HDTV adoption will rise at an increasing rate this year; there's just no stopping it.
