Best Buy is a public company with no controlling owner. Its largest holders are BlackRock (11.08%) and State Street (6.69%); founder and chairman emeritus Richard M. Schulze still owns 6.43%, according to Best Buy’s 2026 proxy statement.
Update (11 Oct 2026): the ownership figures at the top of this page now come from Best Buy’s 2026 proxy statement. The original article below is kept as it was; where its older figures differ, the dated filing figures above apply.
How we source: figures on this page come from the company’s own filings (SEC 10-K, 10-Q, prospectus and earnings releases, or its annual report), with the period stated next to each number; outside estimates appear only labelled, with their source and date. Last refreshed October 2026. Our methodology.
Best Buy’s 2026 proxy statement lists three holders above 5%, out of 210,695,187 shares outstanding: BlackRock (23,328,119 shares, 11.08%), State Street (14,089,734, 6.69%) and Richard M. Schulze, who founded the company as Sound of Music in 1966 (13,552,541 shares, 6.43%). All current directors and executive officers together own 0.50%. See Best Buy business model.
The Business Engineer view
Best Buy is a founder company that became an institutionally owned one: Schulze’s stake is still meaningful, but index managers now set the tone. That ownership mix fits a retailer whose case rests on cash returns and services, not growth at any cost.
Best Buy’s top institutional investors comprise The Vanguard Group, with 11.90% ownership, and BlackRock, with 8.86%. Top individual shareholders comprise Corie Barry, CEO and Director, and Kamy Scarlett, Executive Vice President.
Detail
Description
Company
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Ownership Structure
Publicly traded company with major shareholders
Major Shareholders
Institutional investors like Vanguard Group, BlackRock, State Street Corporation, and individual shareholders
Founding Date
August 22, 1966
Founder
Richard M. Schulze
Headquarters
Richfield, Minnesota, USA
Stock Symbol
BBY (NYSE)
Primary Business
Retailing consumer electronics, appliances, and related services
Strategic Goals
Enhancing customer experience, expanding digital and omnichannel capabilities, and driving growth through innovation in product offerings and services
Additional Ownership Details
Institutional Shareholders: Major institutional investors such as Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street Corporation hold significant stakes in Best Buy, ensuring financial stability and strategic input from key market players.
Public Trading: Best Buy is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BBY, allowing for diverse ownership among institutional and individual investors.
Corporate Strategy: Best Buy focuses on providing a seamless shopping experience across physical stores and online platforms. The company emphasizes customer service, competitive pricing, and a wide range of products, including consumer electronics, home appliances, and related services.
Innovation and Expansion: Best Buy aims to expand its market presence by enhancing digital and omnichannel capabilities, investing in technology to improve supply chain efficiency, and offering innovative products and services, such as smart home solutions and tech support services through Geek Squad.
Customer Experience: Best Buy is committed to enhancing the customer experience by offering expert advice, personalized services, and exclusive deals, fostering customer loyalty and repeat business.
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In one lineBest Buy's top institutional investors comprise The Vanguard Group , with 11.90% ownership, and BlackRock, with 8.86%.
FourWeekMBABusiness EngineerAt a glance
Best Buy's top institutional investors comprise The Vanguard Group, with 11.90% ownership, and BlackRock, with 8.86%.
Top individual shareholders comprise Corie Barry, CEO and Director, and Kamy Scarlett, Executive Vice President.
Public Trading: Best Buy is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BBY, allowing for diverse ownership among institutional and individual investors.
Corporate Strategy: Best Buy focuses on providing a seamless shopping experience across physical stores and online platforms.
Layout refreshed 7 October 2026. The article text below is unchanged.
Why it mattersFrom the article
Institutional Shareholders: Major institutional investors such as Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street Corporation hold significant stakes in Best Buy, ensuring financial stability and strategic input from key market players.
Innovation and Expansion: Best Buy aims to expand its market presence by enhancing digital and omnichannel capabilities, investing in technology to improve supply chain efficiency, and offering innovative products and services, such as smart home solutions and tech support services through Geek Squad.
While from a superficial look at its revenue streams, Best Buy seems the same company it was in 2012. In reality, in the last decade, Best Buy has undergone a massive business model transformation. Due to a shift in consumers behaviors driven by phenomena like “showrooming” (the practice of choosing a tech gadget in a physical store like Best Buy, only to finalize the purchase on an online store like Amazon), Best Buy had to respond by matching prices of online competitors. By redefining its offerings, like the vendor experiences or the “stores-within-stores” services. And broader support to customers throughout Best Buy stores and directly to the consumers’ homes.
In 2023, Best Buy generated $42.79 billion from domestic and $3.5 billion from international segments. Compared to $51.76 billion in revenue in 2022, where Best Buy generated $47,8 billion from the domestic segment and $3.93 billion from the international segment.
In 2023, Best Buy generated most of its revenue from computing and mobile phones ($19.76 billion), followed by consumer electronics ($14.09 billion), appliances ($6.73 billion), entertainment (3.05 billion), services ($2.33 billion).
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
