Best Buy is the largest consumer electronic retailers in the US and Canada. Current chairman Dick Schulze founded the company as a stereo retailer called Sound of Music in Minnesota, back in 1966.

By 1978 he had opened nine stores, and five years later Sound of Music changed its name to Best Buy. In 1995 the company entered Fortune magazine’s 500 largest corporations at number 373, and in 2001 it began its international expansion with the acquisition of Canada’s Future Shop. A global sourcing office in Shanghai followed in 2003.

Three years later it entered into a join venture with Carphone Warehouse to use the UK retailer’s business model as a base from which to grow its share of the U.S.’s mobile market.

Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson joined Sound of Music as a salesman in 1973 and rose to the rank of vice president by 1981. He was appointed CEO in 2002.

The company now has a group of nine brands – including Geek Squad - 150,000 employees and 1,300 stores throughout the U.S., Canada and China, and it currently holds 21% of the U.S consumer electronics market.