Best Buy Will Close All 250 Of Its Small Mobile Phone Stores

Best Buy revealed this week that it is planning to shutter all of its smaller-format mobile phone stores by the end of May.

With around 250 stores expected to close, most of the company’s mobile phone stores are around 1,400 square feet and are located within malls. The stores have represented 1% of Best Buy’s overall sales.

The news was given to employees on Wednesday in an internal memo from CEO Hubert Joly that CNBC reviewed. The Star Tribune was the first to break the news.

Joly wrote in the memo, “We feel good about the opportunity to retain customers and transition them to another one of our sales channels. 85 percent of existing standalone Mobile stores are within three miles of a Big Box store.”

“The decision to exit this part of our business was made in keeping with our principle of continuous optimization,” Joly said.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Best Buy Co Inc. (NYSE: BBY) and have not been compensated for this article.