Item 1. Business.

Unless the context otherwise requires, the terms "we," "us" and "our" in this Annual Report on Form 10-K refer to Best Buy Co., Inc. and, as applicable, its consolidated subsidiaries. Any references to our website addresses do not constitute incorporation by reference of the information contained on the websites.

Description of Business

We were incorporated in the state of Minnesota in 1966. We are driven by our purpose to enrich lives through technology. We do that by leveraging our combination of technology and a human touch to meet our customers’ everyday needs, whether they come to us online, visit our stores or invite us into their homes. We have operations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Segments and Geographic Areas

We have two reportable segments: Domestic and International. The Domestic segment is comprised of the operations, including our Best Buy Health business, in all states, districts and territories of the U.S. under various brand names including Best Buy, Best Buy Business, Best Buy Express, Best Buy Health, CST, Geek Squad, GreatCall, Lively, Magnolia and Pacific Kitchen and Home and the domain names bestbuy.com and greatcall.com. The International segment is comprised of all operations in Canada and Mexico under the brand names Best Buy, Best Buy Express, Best Buy Mobile and Geek Squad and the domain names bestbuy.ca and bestbuy.com.mx.

During the third quarter of fiscal 2021 we made the decision to exit our operations in Mexico and expect operations to cease during fiscal 2022. In fiscal 2020 we acquired all of the outstanding shares of Critical Signal Technologies, Inc. (“CST”) and the predictive healthcare technology business of BioSensics, LLC (“BioSensics”). In fiscal 2019 we acquired all of the outstanding shares of GreatCall, Inc. (“GreatCall”). Refer to Note 2, Restructuring, and Note 3, Acquisitions, of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, included in Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information.

Operations

Our Domestic and International segments are managed by leadership teams responsible for all areas of the business. Both segments operate a multi-channel platform that allows customers to come to us online, visit our stores or invite us into their homes.

Domestic Segment

Development of merchandise and service offerings, pricing and promotions, procurement and supply chain, online and mobile application operations, marketing and advertising and labor deployment across all channels are centrally managed. In addition, support capabilities (for example, human resources, finance, information technology and real estate management) are generally performed at our corporate headquarters. We also have field operations that support retail, services and in-home teams from our corporate headquarters and regional locations. Our retail stores have procedures for inventory management, asset protection, transaction processing, customer relations, store administration, product sales and services, staff training and merchandise display that are largely standardized. All stores generally operate under standard procedures with a degree of flexibility for store management to address certain local market characteristics.

International Segment

Our Canada and Mexico operations are similar to operations in our Domestic segment.

Merchandise and Services

Our Domestic and International segments have offerings in six revenue categories. The key components of each revenue category are as follows:

Computing and Mobile Phones - computing (including desktops, notebooks and peripherals), mobile phones (including related mobile network carrier commissions), networking, tablets (including e-readers) and wearables (including smartwatches);

Consumer Electronics - digital imaging, health and fitness, home theater, portable audio (including headphones and portable speakers) and smart home;

Appliances - large appliances (including dishwashers, laundry, ovens and refrigerators) and small appliances (including blenders, coffee makers and vacuums);

Entertainment - drones, gaming (including hardware, peripherals and software), movies, music, toys, virtual reality and other software;

Services - consultation, delivery, design, health-related services, installation, memberships, repair, set-up, technical support and warranty-related services; and

Other - beverages, snacks, sundry items and other product offerings within our International segment (including baby, furniture, luggage and sporting goods).

Distribution

Domestic Segment

Customers who purchase product online have the choice to pick up product at a Best Buy store (including curbside pick-up at most stores), at an alternative pick-up location or take delivery direct to their homes. Our ship-from-store capability allows us to improve product availability and delivery times for customers. Most merchandise is shipped directly from manufacturers to our distribution centers located throughout the U.S.

International Segment

Our Canada and Mexico distribution models are similar to our Domestic segment distribution models.

Suppliers and Inventory

Our Domestic and International segments purchase merchandise from a variety of suppliers. In fiscal 2021 our 20 largest suppliers accounted for approximately 80% of the merchandise we purchased, with five suppliers – Apple, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, LG and Sony – representing approximately 57% of total merchandise purchased. We generally do not have long-term written contracts with our vendors that would require them to continue supplying us with merchandise or that secure any of the key terms of our arrangements.

We carefully monitor and manage our inventory levels in an effort to match quantities on hand with consumer demand as closely as possible. Key elements to our inventory management process include the following: continuous monitoring of historical and projected consumer demand, continuous monitoring and adjustment of inventory receipt levels and pricing, agreements with vendors relating to reimbursement for the cost of markdowns or sales incentives and agreements with vendors relating to return privileges for certain products.

We also have a global sourcing operation to design, develop, test and contract-manufacture our exclusive brands products.

Store Development

We had 1,126 large-format and 33 small-format stores at the end of fiscal 2021 throughout our Domestic and International segments. Our stores are a vital component of our multi-channel strategy and we believe they are an important competitive advantage. We also have vendor store-within-a-store concepts to allow closer vendor partnerships and a higher quality customer experience. We continuously look for opportunities to optimize our store space, renegotiate leases and selectively open or close locations to support our operations.

Refer to Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, for tables reconciling our Domestic and International segment stores open at the end of each of the last three fiscal years.

Intellectual Property

We own or have the right to use valuable intellectual property such as trademarks, service marks and tradenames, including, but not limited to, Best Buy, Best Buy Essentials, Best Buy Express, Best Buy Health, Best Buy Mobile, CST, Dynex, Geek Squad, GreatCall, Insignia, Jitterbug, Lively, Magnolia, Modal, My Best Buy, Pacific Kitchen and Home, Pacific Sales, Platinum, Rocketfish, 5Star and our Yellow Tag logo.

We have secured domestic and international trademark and service mark registrations for many of our brands. We have also secured patents for many of our inventions. We believe our intellectual property has significant value and is an important factor in the marketing of our company, our stores, our products and our websites.

Seasonality

Our business, like that of many retailers, is seasonal. A large proportion of our revenue and earnings is generated in the fiscal fourth quarter, which includes the majority of the holiday shopping season in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Working Capital

We fund our business operations through a combination of available cash and cash equivalents and cash flows generated from operations. In addition, our revolving credit facilities are available for additional working capital needs, for general corporate purposes and investment and growth opportunities. Our working capital needs typically increase in the months leading up to the holiday shopping season as we purchase inventory in advance of expected sales.

Competition

Our competitors are primarily multi-channel retailers, e-commerce businesses, technology service providers, traditional store-based retailers, vendors and mobile network carriers who offer their products and services directly to customers. We believe our ability to help customers online, in stores and in their homes and to connect technology product and solutions with customer needs provides us key competitive advantages. Some of our competitors have lower cost operating structures and seek to compete for sales primarily on price. We carefully monitor pricing offered by other retailers and service providers, as maintaining price competitiveness is one of our ongoing priorities. In addition, we have price-matching policies that allow customers to request that we match a price offered by certain retail stores and online operators. In order to allow this, we are focused on maintaining efficient operations and leveraging the economies of scale available to us through our global vendor partnerships. We believe our dedicated and knowledgeable people, our integrated online, retail and in-home assets, our broad and curated product assortment, our strong vendor partnerships, our service and support offerings designed to solve real customer needs, our unique ability to showcase technology in distinct store formats and our supply chain are important ways in which we maintain our competitive advantage.

Environmental and Social Impact

We strive to be a good corporate citizen in all of our interactions with stakeholders, including customers, employees, vendor partners, shareholders, the environment and communities in which we operate.

Environmental

Minimizing carbon emissions in our operations is a priority at Best Buy. We have achieved significant progress toward our carbon-reduction goal of 75 percent by 2030 (over a 2009 baseline), from both operational reductions and renewable sourcing. In fiscal 2021 we signed The Climate Pledge, committing to be carbon neutral across our operations by 2040 – a decade earlier than our previous goal of 2050. We also made our second investment in solar energy that is expected to produce 480,000 MWh of clean electricity per year.

We also have a goal to help our customers reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2030 (over a 2017 baseline), which we estimate will save them $5 billion on utility bills by putting greater emphasis on ENERGY STAR® electronics, appliances and other energy-saving devices. In addition, we collected more than 161 million pounds of consumer electronics and appliances for recycling in fiscal 2021, bringing our total to more than 2 billion pounds.

Social Impact

We are committed to supporting teens from disinvested communities in building brighter futures through technology, training and mentorship. The primary way we do this is through our network of Best Buy Teen Tech Centers, places where teens can develop critical skills through hands-on activities that explore their interests in a variety of areas, such as software engineering, filmmaking, 3D design and music production. Teens gain exposure to new career possibilities and benefit from positive adult and peer relationships. Together with our partners, we are building a network of at least 100 Best Buy Teen Tech Centers, which we estimate will reach 30,000 teens annually. We accelerated our progress towards this goal by making a $40 million donation to the Best Buy Foundation in the third quarter of fiscal 2021. We are currently serving teens at 35 Best Buy Teen Tech Centers.

In fiscal 2021 we committed to provide $44 million by 2025 to expand college preparation and career opportunities for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (“BIPOC”) students, including adding 16 scholarships for Historically Black Colleges and Universities students and increasing scholarship funding for Best Buy Teen Tech Center youth.

We are a founding member of ConnectedMN, a public-private partnership helping disinvested communities across the state of Minnesota get access to the Internet and devices to facilitate distance learning as well as critical support services.

We are also committed to respecting and advancing human rights through our alignment with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Further, across all of the products and services we procure, we seek to mitigate risk, enhance the partnership with our suppliers and create value for all stakeholders through our Responsible Supply Chain Program. We are active members of the Responsible Business Alliance, which allows us to partner with many of the brands we sell, including Apple, Intel, Microsoft and Samsung. Collectively, we embrace a common Supplier Code of Conduct and audit methodology that creates business value by improving working and environmental conditions in the supply chain.

For more information on our environmental and social impact, please see our annual Environmental, Social & Governance Report, found on our website at www.investors.bestbuy.com.

Human Capital Management

We aim to attract, retain and develop the best employees. At the end of fiscal 2021 we employed approximately 102,000 employees in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, comprised of approximately 60% full-time employees, 35% part-time employees and 5% seasonal/occasional employees.

Training and Development

Investing in our employees’ learning and development is a priority at Best Buy. Our learning and development experience combines instructor-led classes and interactive online modules, along with one-on-one mentoring and coaching. In fiscal 2021 our employees each received an average of 40 hours of training and we successfully transitioned all meetings and events to virtual environments due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Inclusion and Diversity

We believe in maintaining a supportive and inclusive culture that values everyone’s talents, life experiences and backgrounds. In fiscal 2021 we committed to making systemic, permanent changes that address social injustices to improve our company and our communities.

We are proud of the diversity within our Board of Directors, comprised of 45% female directors and 36% of directors who are People of Color as of March 18, 2021.

We are committed to filling one out of three new, non-hourly corporate positions with BIPOC (specifically Black, Latinx and Indigenous) employees.

We are also committed to filling one out of three new, non-hourly field roles with women.

In the next two years, our Digital and Technology team committed to hiring 1,000 new employees, of which we commit 30% will be BIPOC or female employees.

We are focused on taking steps to foster inclusion among all employee groups to create parity in retention rates, including transforming the composition of our senior leadership teams to be more in line with our Board of Directors.

Benefits

We are committed to taking care of our employees and rewarding them for their hard work and dedication through a competitive rewards package of pay, benefits, discounts and opportunities. Our benefits package focuses on total employee well-being: physical, mental, financial and social.

In fiscal 2021 we increased the starting hourly wage for all domestic employees to $15 per hour. And, to improve on pay predictability, a 4% increase in hourly rate replaced short-term incentive compensation for hourly store employees below the leadership level.

In support of the changing lives of our employees due to COVID-19, we enhanced our employee benefits package to include 100% coverage of COVID-related health care expenses, expanded caregiver leave, additional support for backup childcare, tutoring reimbursement and access to physical and mental health virtual visits.

Safety

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease ("COVID-19") as a pandemic. In response to the pandemic, the safety of our employees and customers became a top priority. We proactively closed stores at the beginning of the pandemic and then implemented a contactless, curbside-only operating model, and we continue to offer curbside pick-up at most stores today. When customers returned to shopping in our stores, we instituted a variety of safety procedures to keep our employees and customers safe, including requiring the use of face coverings, requiring employees to complete daily wellness checks and frequent cleaning protocols. We are also limiting the number of customers inside our stores to allow for CDC-recommended social distancing.

Available Information

We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act and its rules and regulations. The Exchange Act requires us to file reports, proxy statements and other information with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). We make available, free of charge on our website, our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements and amendments to these reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file these documents with, or furnish them to, the SEC. These documents are posted on our website at www.investors.bestbuy.com. The SEC also maintains a website that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers, including us, that file electronically with the SEC at www.sec.gov.

We also make available, free of charge on our website, our Amended and Restated Articles of Incorporation, Amended and Restated By-laws, the Corporate Governance Principles of our Board of Directors ("Board") and our Code of Business Ethics adopted by our Board, as well as the charters of all of our Board's committees: Audit Committee; Compensation and Human Resources Committee; Finance and Investment Policy Committee; and Nominating, Corporate Governance and Public Policy Committee. These documents are posted on our website at www.investors.bestbuy.com.

Copies of any of the above-referenced documents will also be made available, free of charge, upon written request to Best Buy Co., Inc. Investor Relations Department at 7601 Penn Avenue South, Richfield, MN 55423-3645.