Best Buy will feature interactive demonstrations of the company's pay-TV, broadband, mobile and fixed-line services. It will complement its electrical offering through offering a range of entertainment and computing systems that may require Virgin Media products and services.
The first Best Buy UK stores to open will be Thurrock in Essex and Hedge End near Southampton in May, followed by Merry Hill in the West Midlands in June. The company also plans to open stores in Aintree near Liverpool. and in Croydon.
Virgin Media itself already has a high-street presence in the UK, with 57 own-branded stores in locations including central London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Leeds and Leicester. It also has 26 ‘retail lite' sites in locations within shopping centres across the country.
Virgin Media is a rival to broadband and phone provider Talk Talk, which was de-merged last month from Carphone Warehouse, Best Buy's joint venture partner.
The US retailer first partnered with Carphone Warehouse in 2006, allowing the UK business to bring its mobile phone expertise to the US market under the banner ‘Best Buy Mobile'.
Two years later, Best Buy acquired 50% of the Carphone Warehouse's US and European retail interests for £1.1bn and created the joint venture, Best Buy Europe.
The new venture was designed to accelerate the development of Carphone Warehouse's retail proposition and to introduce Best Buy stores across Europe, beginning in the UK this spring.
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