Best Buy entered the UK with 11 stores — it lost $2.3B and left in 3 years

In May 2008, Best Buy agreed to a 50/50 joint venture with The Carphone Warehouse valued at $2.1 billion. The plan was to bring Best Buy's big-box electronics retail model to the UK, combining it with Carphone Warehouse's mobile phone expertise. The first Best Buy store opened in Thurrock in April 2010, and 10 more followed.

The concept failed to resonate with British consumers. The stores were large, expensive to operate, and faced fierce competition from established UK retailers like Dixons (Currys/PC World), online players like Amazon, and the supermarkets that sold electronics at thin margins. The UK market was already saturated, and Best Buy's US-style big-box format did not offer enough differentiation.

In November 2011, Best Buy bought Carphone Warehouse's share of their US mobile phone joint venture for $1.3 billion, but the UK stores continued to bleed money. By early 2012, all 11 UK stores were closed. In April 2012, Best Buy took a $2.3 billion charge related to its UK operations — effectively admitting the entire European experiment was a write-off.

In April 2013, Best Buy sold its 50% stake in the European joint venture back to Carphone Warehouse for approximately $775 million. The total loss on the UK venture was over $1.5 billion. Best Buy never returned to Europe. The failure is a textbook case of a successful US retailer assuming its model would work in a different market without adapting to local competition and consumer behaviour.