Best Buy sees big drop in TV sales, eases pain with beefy mobile revenue

Best Buy's stock took a 14.8 percent beating today on news that it earned $217 million in the third quarter -- a 4.4 percent decline year over year -- and felt compelled to revise its fourth quarter forecast downwards. The reason? Seems folks are holding off on buying televisions in a big way: the company suffered a "low-double digit' decline in boob tube sales, even worse than an industry average in the single digits, which would suggest that 2010's 3D revolution hasn't attracted the kind of consumer attention manufacturers (and content providers) would've liked. If there's a silver lining, it's that double digit increases in phone sales -- combined with a single digit boost in tablets and related mobile devices (read: iPads) -- helped to offset the TV decline. Of course, we're sure people will need new LCDs and plasmas eventually... but maybe it's going to have to wait for 4K.