• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, April 5, 2007

Consumer-electronics retailer Best Buy posted strong sales and earnings for the fourth quarter, in contrast to the pummeling posted by rival Circuit City. And Best Buy, which has been testing the sale of Apple computers in 50 stores, said it will expand the program to 200 stores by the fall.

For its fiscal fourth quarter, Best Buy's revenue jumped 21%, to $12.9 billion. And its comparable-store sales, the financial measure retailing experts watch closely, were up 5.9%, stronger than expected. In its U.S. units, same-store sales gained 4.8%. And online revenue grew by a hefty 40%.

In a conference call, company officials said Best Buy has been "very pleased with the results of our 50-store pilot program with Apple, and we are looking forward to broadening the computing choices for even more of our customers. By this fall, we'll be offering iMacs, MacBooks and MacBook Pros along with a wide variety of Mac-compatible accessories at approximately 200 stores nationwide."

The company said its comparable store-sales gains were fueled by "higher revenue from flat-panel televisions, video gaming hardware and notebook computers," offsetting declines in tube and projection TVs, printers, CDs and desktop computing.

In addition, the company said that flat-panel TVs "experienced a strong double-digit comparable store sales gain as declining prices led to higher volumes and increased screen sizes. Home theater installation services grew by strong triple digits, accompanying the high demand."

But those same flat-panel TVs hammered the results of rival Circuit City, which blamed changes in the cost structure of the flat panel TV business for its disappointing results. For its fourth quarter, sales increased 1.2%, to $3.93 billion, while comparable store sales fell 0.5% from the prior year. (The results include a $144.6 million charge associated with previously announced closures.)

Bright spots include online sales, which the company said gained 50% for the fiscal year, to $1 billion. And it expects its sales from firedog services, a competitor to Best Buy's Geek Squad, to more than double to $400 million in the year ahead.

"We are disappointed in our financial performance, which largely reflects the effects of permanent changes in the television category and transitory changes in the PC category," the company said.