百思買 (BBY) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Best Buy's Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this call is being recorded for playback and will be available by approximately 11 a.m. Eastern Time today. (Operator Instructions)

女士們先生們，謝謝你們的支持。歡迎參加百思買 2021 財年第四季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）謹此提醒，此通話正在錄音以便回放，並將在東部時間今天上午 11 點左右播放。 （操作員說明）

I will now turn the conference call over to Mollie O'Brien, Vice President of Investor Relations.

我現在將電話會議轉交給投資者關係副總裁 Mollie O'Brien。

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call today are Corie Barry, our CEO; Matt Bilunas, our CFO; and Mike Mohan, our President and COO.

謝謝大家，大家早安。今天和我一起參加電話會議的是我們的執行長科里·巴里 (Corie Barry)； Matt Bilunas，我們的財務長；以及我們的總裁兼營運長 Mike Mohan。

During the call today, we will be discussing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and an explanation of why these non-GAAP financial measures are useful can be found in this morning's earnings release, which is available on our website, investors.bestbuy.com.

在今天的電話會議中，我們將討論公認會計原則和非公認會計原則財務指標。這些非 GAAP 財務指標與最直接可比較的 GAAP 財務指標的對帳以及這些非 GAAP 財務指標為何有用的解釋可以在今天早上的收益報告中找到，該報告可在我們的網站 Investors.bestbuy 上找到。 .

Some of the statements we will make today are considered forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may address the financial condition, business initiatives, growth plans, investments and expected performance of the company and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements. Please refer to the company's current earnings release and our most recent 10-K and subsequent 10-Qs for more information on these risks and uncertainties. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this call.

我們今天將發表的一些聲明被視為 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》含義內的前瞻性聲明。實際結果與此類前瞻性陳述有重大差異的風險和不確定性。請參閱公司目前的獲利報告以及我們最近的 10-K 和隨後的 10-Q，以了解有關這些風險和不確定性的更多資訊。本公司不承擔更新或修改任何前瞻性陳述以反映本次電話會議之後可能發生的事件或情況的義務。

I will now turn the call over to Corie.

我現在將把電話轉給科里。

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. During the fourth quarter, our teams across the company delivered an exceptional customer experience in a safe environment. They showed amazing flexibility and execution, managing extraordinary volume in a dynamic situation, and they strive every day to create safe shopping experiences often in the face of pandemic fatigue. As a result, today, we are reporting strong Q4 financial results, which include comparable sales growth of 12.6% and non-GAAP earnings per share growth of 20%.

大家早安，感謝您加入我們。在第四季度，我們整個公司的團隊在安全的環境中提供了卓越的客戶體驗。他們表現出了驚人的靈活性和執行力，在動態的情況下管理著巨大的交易量，並且在面對大流行疲勞的情況下，他們每天都在努力創造安全的購物體驗。因此，今天，我們報告了強勁的第四季度財務業績，其中可比銷售額增長 12.6%，非 GAAP 每股收益增長 20%。

We continued to leverage our unique capabilities, including our supply chain expertise, flexible store operating model and ability to shift quickly to digital to meet the ongoing elevated demand for stay-at-home products and services. Online sales grew almost 90% to a record $6.7 billion and made up 43% of our total Domestic sales. Our stores played a pivotal role in the fulfillment of these sales as almost 2/3 of our online revenue was either picked up in-store or curbside, shipped from a store or delivered by a store employee.

我們繼續利用我們獨特的能力，包括我們的供應鏈專業知識、靈活的商店營運模式以及快速轉向數位化的能力，以滿足對居家產品和服務持續增長的需求。線上銷售額成長近 90%，達到創紀錄的 67 億美元，占我們國內總銷售額的 43%。我們的商店在實現這些銷售方面發揮了關鍵作用，因為我們近 2/3 的線上收入是​​在店內或路邊提貨、從商店發貨或由商店員工送貨的。

The percent of online sales picked up by customers at our stores was 48%, representing a 90% increase in volume. Ship-to-home volume was up 38%. And even with that increase in volume, we were able to accelerate the delivery speed to our customers on a year-over-year basis by strategically using our partners, our stores and our employee delivery. For additional context, same-day shipping volume was up 376%, and our employees delivered more than 1 million units. From a product category perspective, the biggest contributors to the strong comp sales growth in the quarter were computing, appliances, gaming, virtual reality and home theater.

顧客到店取貨的網路銷售比例為 48%，銷售量成長了 90%。船到家數量增加了 38%。即使數量增加，我們也能夠透過策略性地利用我們的合作夥伴、商店和員工送貨，逐年加快向客戶的送貨速度。此外，當日出貨量增加了 376%，我們的員工交付了超過 100 萬件。從產品類別的角度來看，本季銷售額強勁成長的最大貢獻者是計算、家電、遊戲、虛擬實境和家庭劇院。

As you recall, this year, we started holiday promotions in October, which is in our third quarter. We started these events early and spread them over the course of several weeks to help avoid overly crowded days in our stores in order to create a safer shopping experience. These efforts can manage the traffic flow into our stores proved effective and evened out some of the peaks and valleys through the holiday season. As planned, it also resulted in some holiday sales being pulled into Q3. After reaching 33% comp growth in October, our growth rate moderated as we lapped last year's November and December holiday sales before accelerating again in January due to the ongoing elevated stay-at-home demand boosted by government stimulus actions. That sales growth momentum we saw in January has largely continued into February.

正如您所記得的，今年我們從十月開始了假期促銷活動，也就是我們的第三季。我們很早就開始了這些活動，並將其分散在幾週的時間內，以幫助避免商店裡過於擁擠的情況，從而創造更安全的購物體驗。這些努力可以有效管理進入我們商店的客流量，並平衡了假期季節的一些高峰和低谷。按照計劃，這也導致一些假日銷售被拉至第三季。在10 月達到33% 的複合成長率後，我們的成長率有所放緩，因為我們超越了去年的11 月和12 月假期銷售，然後由於政府刺激措施推動的居家需求持續上升，1 月再次加速。我們在一月份看到的銷售成長動能基本上延續到了二月。

As a result of both the successful early holiday sales and the product availability issues the industry has been seeing all year, we continued to experience product availability constraints during the fourth quarter, which we believe moderated our holiday sales, particularly in large appliances, computing and televisions. In addition, demand for the new gaming consoles far outstrip supply across the industry as was well documented. Our teams work closely and effectively with our vendors to bring in as much inventory as possible, and inventory positions improved through the quarter.

由於提前假日銷售的成功以及行業全年都出現的產品供應問題，我們在第四季度繼續遇到產品供應限制，我們認為這減緩了我們的假期銷售，特別是在大型家電、計算機和設備領域。電視。此外，正如有據可查的那樣，整個行業對新遊戲機的需求遠遠超過供應。我們的團隊與供應商密切有效地合作，引入盡可能多的庫存，並且整個季度的庫存狀況得到改善。

As I step back and reflect upon the whole year, it was truly a year like no other. In addition to an international pandemic, there was social unrest across the nation and numerous natural disasters. I am proud of and inspired by the way our teams have navigated the challenges and what they have accomplished. We saw remarkable customer demand and delivered outstanding execution that led to a very strong financial results. For the year, we delivered comparable sales growth of 9.7% and non-GAAP earnings per share growth of 30%. We drove record free cash flow of $4.2 billion and ended the year with $5.5 billion in cash and short-term investments.

當我回顧這一整年時，我發現這一年確實與眾不同。除了國際大流行之外，全國各地還出現社會動盪和許多自然災害。我為我們的團隊應對挑戰的方式和所取得的成就感到自豪和鼓舞。我們看到了巨大的客戶需求並提供了出色的執行力，從而帶來了非常強勁的財務表現。今年，我們的可比銷售額成長了 9.7%，非 GAAP 每股盈餘成長了 30%。我們的自由現金流達到創紀錄的 42 億美元，年底現金和短期投資達到 55 億美元。

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have responded to the impacts of it with a focus on safety and helping customers get the products they need to work, learn, cook, entertain and communicate at home. We provided customers with multiple options for how, when and where they shop with us to ensure we met their definition of safe retailing, and customers noticed. The percent of customers surveyed who said we made them feel safe while they were in our stores and while we were in their homes was consistently above 97% throughout the year.

自從疫情爆發以來，我們一直在應對其影響，重點關注安全，並幫助客戶獲得在家工作、學習、烹飪、娛樂和交流所需的產品。我們為顧客提供了多種購物方式、時間和地點的選擇，以確保我們符合他們對安全零售的定義，並吸引顧客的注意。在受訪的顧客中，表示我們讓他們在我們的商店和我們在家時感到安全的顧客比例全年始終高於 97%。

To best serve our customers during the pandemic, we had to be innovative and flexible. Early in the year, we quickly rolled out enhanced curbside pickup across our stores to provide our customers convenience when we made the difficult decision to close our stores in March. In May, we developed an in-store appointment model that provided our customers with an option to shop in our stores as we prepare to open stores back up to customer shopping. We developed solutions like virtual consultations with advisers and video chats with our store associates.

為了在大流行期間最好地服務我們的客戶，我們必須保持創新和靈活性。今年年初，當我們在 3 月做出關閉商店的艱難決定時，我們迅速在商店中推出了增強型路邊取貨服務，為顧客提供便利。五月，我們開發了店內預約模式，當我們準備開設商店以支持客戶購物時，為客戶提供在我們商店購物的選擇。我們開發了解決方案，例如與顧問進行虛擬諮詢以及與商店員工進行視訊聊天。

In addition, we made significant improvements to the functionality and customer experience of our app to provide access to shopping, support and fulfillment. This served not only new users of the app but also increased levels of customer engagement with the app. In Q4, first-time launches of the app were up almost 80%, and the average number of app visits per unique user were up 34%.

此外，我們還對應用程式的功能和客戶體驗進行了重大改進，以提供購物、支援和履行服務。這不僅為應用程式的新用戶提供了服務，還提高了客戶與應用程式的互動程度。第四季度，該應用程式的首次啟動次數增加了近 80%，每個唯一用戶的平均應用程式造訪次數增加了 34%。

During the year, we also increased our investment in support of our employees. Early on in the pandemic, we continued to pay employees who weren't working for a full month after we closed our stores to customer shopping. We paid hourly appreciation pay for those who are working on the front lines and established multiple hardship funds for anyone impacted physically, emotionally or financially by COVID. We provided enhanced benefits that included 100% coverage of COVID-related health care expenses, expanded caregiver leave, additional support for backup childcare, tutoring reimbursement and access to physical and mental health virtual visits.

年內，我們也加大了對員工支援的投入。在疫情爆發初期，我們在關閉商店以供顧客購物後，繼續向未工作一個月的員工支付薪水。我們為那些在前線工作的人們支付了每小時的感謝費，並為那些在身體、情感或經濟上受到新冠疫情影響的人設立了多個困難基金。我們提供了增強的福利，包括 100% 覆蓋與新冠病毒相關的醫療保健費用、延長照顧者假期、對備用兒童保育的額外支持、輔導報銷以及獲得身心健康虛擬就診的機會。

Including our estimates for fiscal '22, we will have invested more than $75 million on enhancements to our structural employee benefits over a 3- year period. In addition to enhanced benefits, starting in August, we raised the starting minimum wage to $15 per hour for all our employees, which brought our average hourly wage for hourly employees up to $17.67. To show our appreciation for their hard work over the past year and in recognition of their ongoing efforts in the face of pandemic fatigue, we are paying employees an additional cash gratitude bonus. In the next few weeks, all hourly U.S. employees will receive $500 as full time and $200 as part-time or occasional seasonal.

包括我們對 22 財年的估計在內，我們將在 3 年內投資超過 7,500 萬美元來增強我們的結構性員工福利。除了增強福利外，從 8 月開始，我們將所有員工的起薪最低工資提高到每小時 15 美元，這使我們每小時員工的平均工資達到 17.67 美元。為了感謝他們過去一年的辛勤工作，並表彰他們在疫情疲勞面前不斷做出的努力，我們向員工支付額外的現金感謝獎金。在接下來的幾週內，所有美國小時工的全職員工將獲得 500 美元，兼職或臨時季節性員工將獲得 200 美元。

In addition, to help keep employees and customers safe, we are encouraging all employees to get COVID vaccinations as they are available by providing them with paid time off when they receive the vaccine and providing them absence time to be used in the event they develop side effects that warrant they're needing to stay home and rest after receiving the vaccination.

此外，為了幫助確保員工和客戶的安全，我們鼓勵所有員工在有機會時接種新冠病毒疫苗，在他們接種疫苗時為他們提供帶薪休假，並在他們出現流感症狀時提供缺勤時間。接種疫苗後需要待在家中休息的影響。

In all, the COVID-related decisions we have made since the beginning of the pandemic to support our employees totaled more than $350 million. This includes paying employees while they weren't working during store closures, appreciation pay, guaranteed pay, bonuses, vaccination support and hardship funds.

總的來說，自疫情爆發以來，我們為支持員工而做出的與新冠病毒相關的決定總計超過 3.5 億美元。這包括在商店關閉期間向不工作的員工支付工資、感謝費、保證工資、獎金、疫苗接種支持和困難基金。

We've also deepened our commitment to community. Last year, we made a $40 million donation to the Best Buy Foundation to accelerate the progress toward our goal to reach 100 Teen Tech Centers across the U.S., and we committed to making systemic permanent changes that address social injustices to improve our company and our communities. We also signed The Climate Pledge, committing to be carbon neutral across our operations by 2040, a decade earlier than our previous goal of 2050. We were honored to be recognized for our efforts by Barron's earlier this month when we were named to the top of their most sustainable public companies list. The list rated the 1,000 largest public companies on 5 key stakeholder categories: shareholders, employees, customers, community and planet.

我們也加深了對社區的承諾。去年，我們向百思買基金會捐贈了4000 萬美元，以加速實現我們在全美建立100 個青少年科技中心的目標，並且我們致力於進行系統性永久性變革，解決社會不公正現象，從而改善我們的公司和社區。我們還簽署了《氣候承諾》，承諾到2040 年在我們的營運中實現碳中和，這比我們之前的2050 年目標提前了十年。 《巴倫周刊》的認可，當時我們被評為「碳中和」他們最永續的上市公司名單。該名單根據 5 個主要利害關係人類別對 1,000 家最大的上市公司進行了評級：股東、員工、客戶、社區和地球。

Notably, Best Buy was also called out as the company with the leading COVID response, citing our efforts to maintain employee and customer safety, help employees experiencing hardship and continue to meet the technology needs of customers. This is the fourth time we have been in the top 5 and the second time we have been in the #1 position.

值得注意的是，百思買也被評為新冠疫情應對措施領先的公司，理由是我們在維護員工和客戶安全、幫助遇到困難的員工以及繼續滿足客戶的技術需求方面所做的努力。這是我們第四次進入前五名，也是第二次進入第一名。

As we think about our strategy moving forward, many of the themes we discussed at our 2019 investor update came to life in a very accelerated way last year. It is important to reiterate the following 3 concepts we believe to be permanent and structural implications of the pandemic that are shaping our strategic priorities.

當我們思考我們的策略前進時，我們在 2019 年投資者更新中討論的許多主題在去年以非常快的速度實現。重要的是要重申以下三個概念，我們認為這些概念是疫情的永久性和結構性影響，正在塑造我們的策略重點。

One, customer shopping behavior will be permanently changed in a way that is even more digital and puts customers entirely in control to shop how they want. Our strategy is to embrace that reality and to lead, not follow. It is too early to know exactly how much of our sales and customer shopping activity will be via digital channels over time. But as I mentioned earlier, online sales were up 43% of our domestic -- online sales were 43% of our domestic sales in fiscal '21, and we are planning for the mix to be approximately 40% in fiscal '22. That compares to 19% in fiscal '20 and only 5% just 10 years ago.

第一，顧客的購物行為將以更數位化的方式永久改變，讓顧客完全掌控自己想要的購物方式。我們的策略是擁抱這個現實並引領而不是跟隨。隨著時間的推移，現在確切知道我們的銷售和客戶購物活動有多少將透過數位管道進行還為時過早。但正如我之前提到的，線上銷售額占我們國內銷售額的43%——21 財年，線上銷售額占我們國內銷售額的43%，我們計劃在22 財年，這一比例約為40 %。相較之下，20 財年這一比例為 19%，而 10 年前僅為 5%。

Two, our workforce will need to evolve in a way that meets the needs of customers while providing more flexible opportunities for our employees. And three, technology is playing an even more crucial role in people's lives. And as a result, our purpose to enrich lives through technology has never been more important. We play a vital role in bringing technology to life for both our customers and our vendor partners. These concepts are extensive and interdependent, and we are, as quickly as possible, both implementing change today and assessing future implications across our entire business, including how we evolve our stores and labor models and how we spend our investment dollars.

第二，我們的員工隊伍需要以滿足客戶需求的方式發展，同時為我們的員工提供更靈活的機會。第三，科技在人們的生活中扮演著更重要的角色。因此，我們透過科技豐富生活的目標變得前所未有的重要。我們在為客戶和供應商合作夥伴將技術變為現實方面發揮著至關重要的作用。這些概念廣泛且相互依存，我們正在盡快實施今天的變革，並評估對整個業務的未來影響，包括我們如何發展我們的商店和勞動力模式以及我們如何花費我們的投資資金。

Our research indicates our customers look to Best Buy to serve 4 shopping needs: inspiration, research, convenience and support. And customers expect to be able to seamlessly interact with physical and digital channels. We must be ready to serve all of these needs at all times in all channels. We are building all of our experiences around meeting these needs as we move from being a big-box retailer with a strong omnichannel presence to an omnichannel retailer with a large store footprint for support and fulfillment.

我們的研究表明，我們的客戶希望百思買能滿足 4 種購物需求：靈感、研究、便利性和支援。客戶希望能夠與實體和數位管道無縫互動。我們必須做好隨時透過所有管道滿足所有這些需求的準備。隨著我們從擁有強大全通路業務的大型零售商轉變為擁有大量商店足跡以提供支援和履行的全通路零售商，我們正在圍繞著滿足這些需求來建立我們的所有經驗。

Fundamentally, when you're looking for help and want to be inspired, the best experience will always be in our stores, talking to one of our amazing employees. The proximity to a physical store still matters to many customers. And our stores serve an important role in fulfillment and support and also provide awareness and convenience that are critical to retaining and growing sales. But we also know that customer shopping behaviors are changing, and we need to evolve with them.

從根本上來說，當您尋求幫助並希望獲得靈感時，最好的體驗始終是在我們的商店中，與我們出色的員工交談。對許多顧客來說，靠近實體店仍然很重要。我們的商店在履行和支持方面發揮著重要作用，並提供對於維持和增加銷售至關重要的意識和便利性。但我們也知道客戶的購物行為正在發生變化，我們需要與他們一起發展。

In the fourth quarter, the pandemic drove a roughly 15% reduction in traffic to our stores, including both in-store shoppers and customers picking up online orders via in-store or curbside. And while some traffic will likely shift back to our store channel in fiscal '22, like many retailers, we believe much of what we saw last year will be permanent. Our employees and the stores will always be central to our strategy. We are simply looking at how we can best deploy our team and our physical assets to meet customer expectations and needs.

第四季度，疫情導致我們商店的客流量減少了約 15%，其中包括店內購物者和透過店內或路邊提取線上訂單的顧客。雖然像許多零售商一樣，一些流量可能會在 22 財年轉移回我們的商店管道，但我們相信去年看到的大部分情況將是永久性的。我們的員工和商店將始終是我們策略的核心。我們只是在考慮如何最好地部署我們的團隊和有形資產來滿足客戶的期望和需求。

As we discussed last quarter, we are taking the opportunity to test and pilot a range of models and initiatives in order to chart the best path forward. We must balance the urgency for change with the need to learn and understand how customer shopping behavior is changing. We are already gathering learnings and iterating on our initiative. An example is our ship-from-store hub pilot that we've talked about for the past few quarters. During Q4, we used 340 stores or roughly 35% of our store locations to handle about 70% of our total ship-from-store units. We believe that we can achieve similar results, consolidating volume using a smaller group of stores as hubs over time.

正如我們在上季度討論的那樣，我們正在藉此機會測試和試點一系列模型和舉措，以製定最佳的前進道路。我們必須在變革的迫切性與了解和了解客戶購物行為如何變化的需求之間取得平衡。我們已經在收集經驗教訓並迭代我們的倡議。一個例子是我們在過去幾個季度討論過的從商店發貨中心試點。在第四季度，我們使用了 340 家商店（約 35% 的商店位置）來處理約 70% 的從商店發貨的商品數量。我們相信，我們可以得到類似的結果，隨著時間的推移，使用較小的商店群作為中心來鞏固銷售。

In addition, in a subset of these stores, we plan to reduce the sales floor square footage and install warehouse-grade packaging, station equipment and supplies. As a result, we expect to drive both efficiency and effectiveness. We also continue to pilot reduced selling square footage and alternative layouts in a number of stores in the Minneapolis market.

此外，在這些商店的一部分中，我們計劃減少銷售面積並安裝倉庫級包裝、車站設備和用品。因此，我們希望提高效率和效益。我們也繼續在明尼阿波利斯市場的許多商店中試行減少銷售面積和替代佈局。

As you would expect, pandemic or not, we're constantly looking at our store network, responding to customer and demographic shifts just as any retailer does. We will continue our normal review process, which involves putting stores through rigorous evaluations as their leases come up for renewal.

正如您所期望的，無論是否發生大流行，我們都會像任何零售商一樣不斷關注我們的商店網絡，響應客戶和人口結構的變化。我們將繼續正常的審查流程，其中包括在商店續約時對其進行嚴格的評估。

As we look to the near term, there will be higher thresholds on renewing leases as we evaluate the role each store plays in its market, the investments required to meet our customer needs and the expected return based on a new retail landscape. For context, we have approximately 450 leases coming up for renewal in the next 3 years or an average of 150 each year. As part of the review process, we have closed approximately 20 large-format locations each of the past 2 years and expect to close a higher number this year. We have also been reducing the length of our average lease term, which will continue to provide us flexibility.

展望近期，我們評估每家商店在其市場中所扮演的角色、滿足客戶需求所需的投資以及基於新零售格局的預期回報，續租的門檻將會更高。就背景而言，我們大約有 450 個租約將在未來 3 年內續約，平均每年有 150 個。作為審查過程的一部分，我們在過去兩年每年關閉了大約 20 家大型門市，預計今年將關閉更多門市。我們也一直在縮短平均租賃期限，這將繼續為我們提供靈活性。

In addition to our physical stores, our operating model needs to evolve to meet our customers' changing shopping behaviors that have been accelerated by the pandemic. The sudden and lasting shift customers have made to shopping more regularly and seamlessly across all of our channels has forced us to look at how we get our work done. Our response to the pandemic has shown our ability to be successful when broadening the scope of responsibility of our associates and has highlighted the importance of ongoing flexibility and adaptability. This, too, was a hypothesis we shared at our 2019 investor update and was massively accelerated by customer shopping behavior changes.

除了實體店面之外，我們的營運模式也需要不斷發展，以滿足顧客因疫情而加速的購物行為的改變。客戶突然且持久地在我們所有管道上更頻繁、更無縫地購物，這迫使我們審視如何完成工作。我們對這場流行病的應對顯示了我們在擴大員工責任範圍時取得成功的能力，並凸顯了持續靈活性和適應性的重要性。這也是我們在 2019 年投資者更新中分享的一個假設，並且由於客戶購物行為的變化而大大加速了這一假設。

Since the pandemic began, our overall head count has been going through a transformation. As a reminder, we made the difficult decision to furlough approximately 51,000 retail employees due to store closures last April. By August, we had brought back about 2/3 of them. As we approach the fourth quarter, any remaining employees that had been on furlough were asked to return to work as seasonal employees for the holidays. As employees who are on furlough decided not to come back and other employees left as a result of attrition, we have not been backfilling positions as we consider how to adjust our operations to better meet our customers' needs going forward. As a result, we entered fiscal '21 with 123,000 employees across the entire organization, and we are leaving the year with about 102,000 team members, a decline of roughly 21,000 or 17%.

自大流行開始以來，我們的總人數一直在經歷變化。謹此提醒，由於去年 4 月商店關閉，我們做出了艱難的決定，讓約 51,000 名零售員工暫時休假。到8月份，我們已經帶回了大約2/3。隨著第四季度的臨近，任何剩餘的休假員工都被要求作為季節性員工在假期返回工作崗位。由於休假的員工決定不再回來，而其他員工則因自然減員而離開，我們沒有重新填補職位，而是考慮如何調整我們的運營，以更好地滿足客戶未來的需求。因此，進入 21 財年，我們整個組織的員工人數為 123,000 人，到了今年年底，我們的團隊成員人數約為 102,000 人，減少了約 21,000 人，即 17%。

Even though head count across the enterprise has been declining primarily due to this attrition, we still have had to make difficult decisions. Earlier this month, one of those decisions was to adjust the mix of full-time and part-time employees at each of our store locations. At an aggregate level, this was due to having too many full-time and not enough part-time employees. As part of the process, part-time roles were offered to many of the displaced full-time employees who are interested and qualified. The end result was that we laid off and provided severance to approximately 5,000 in place, the majority of which were full time. At the same time, we are adding approximately 2,000 additional part-time positions. Decisions like these are never easy or taken lightly, but they position us to be more responsive and flexible as we continue to refine our operating model going forward in response to the incredibly rapid change in how customers want to shop with us.

儘管主要由於這種人員流失，整個企業的員工人數一直在減少，但我們仍然必須做出艱難的決定。本月早些時候，其中一項決定是調整我們每家商店的全職和兼職員工的比例。總體而言，這是由於全職員工過多而兼職員工不足造成的。作為這個過程的一部分，我們向許多有興趣且合格的被取代的全職員工提供了兼職職位。最終的結果是，我們對大約 5,000 名員工進行了裁員並提供了遣散費，其中大部分是全職員工。同時，我們也將新增約 2,000 個兼職職位。做出這樣的決定絕非易事或輕率做出的，但它們使我們能夠更加敏感和靈活，因為我們不斷完善我們的營運模式，以應對客戶希望在我們這裡購物的方式發生的令人難以置信的快速變化。

It is important to add that we are intent on reskilling and retraining employees wherever possible so we can retain our people and employees can flexibly work across all our channels. Our vision of a flexible workforce is about more than having our associates gain the knowledge and skills to be effective in more areas within the traditional store setting. It expands to include the type of interactions that have become even more relevant in a digital shopping environment. Over the past year, thousands of employees who possess unique skills were leveraged across multiple areas of our business like virtual sales, chat, phone and remote support. In addition, we are investing in people and hiring in areas like supply chain, small parcel delivery, customer care and technology in support of our long-term strategy.

需要補充的是，我們致力於盡可能地對員工進行再培訓和再培訓，以便我們能夠留住我們的員工，並且員工能夠在我們所有的管道中靈活地工作。我們對靈活勞動力的願景不僅僅是讓我們的員工獲得知識和技能，以便在傳統商店環境中的更多領域中發揮作用。它擴展到包括在數位購物環境中變得更加相關的互動類型。在過去的一年裡，我們業務的多個領域（例如虛擬銷售、聊天、電話和遠端支援）充分利用了數千名擁有獨特技能的員工。此外，我們還在供應鏈、小包裹遞送、客戶服務和技術等領域進行人員投資和招聘，以支持我們的長期策略。

As the last year has demonstrated, technology is playing an even more crucial role in people's lives. We are excited about the technology trends and innovation we see over the next several years. As expected, there has been immense innovation in the consumer health category. The fitness industry has pivoted quickly, and the category is exploding as consumers want to stay fit at home and outfit home gyms. Beyond the connected equipment, customers now have the ability to integrate data for different types of activities like rowing, biking and running into any number of wearable devices to measure their overall fitness and progress more seamlessly. There is also innovation around more chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease with wearables that monitor insulin levels and heart rates. Hearing aids is another category going through innovation, and we are excited to help our customers with hearing needs both online and in our stores.

正如去年所表明的那樣，科技在人們的生活中發揮著更重要的作用。我們對未來幾年看到的技術趨勢和創新感到興奮。正如預期的那樣，消費者健康領域出現了巨大的創新。健身產業發展迅速，隨著消費者希望在家中保持健康並配備家庭健身房，該類別正在爆炸式增長。除了連網裝置之外，客戶現在還能夠將划船、騎自行車和跑步等不同類型活動的數據整合到任意數量的可穿戴設備中，以更無縫地測量他們的整體健康狀況和進步。圍繞糖尿病和心臟病等慢性病也有創新，可監測胰島素水平和心率的穿戴裝置。助聽器是另一個正在經歷創新的類別，我們很高興能夠在網路和實體店面幫助客戶滿足聽力需求。

The proliferation of health-related devices has become so great. We created a health and wellness digital shopping experience accessible directly from the homepage of our website. Of course, there's an innovation curve in products that help people work at home as well. There is an influx of products around all aspects from high-tech chairs to monitors to standing desks. These are products that were not even on vendor road maps before the pandemic and now truly complete the working-at-home experience.

與健康相關的設備的激增已經變得如此之大。我們創建了一種可直接從我們網站主頁存取的健康和保健數位購物體驗。當然，幫助人們在家工作的產品也有創新曲線。從高科技椅子到顯示器再到站立式辦公桌，各個方面的產品大量湧入。這些產品在大流行之前甚至沒有出現在供應商路線圖上，但現在真正完成了在家工作的體驗。

Access to 5G is still growing as networks are rolling out across cities. As we move into next year and the year after, it will be more mainstream and accessible for all of us. We are excited about the introduction of new products over time that will leverage the speed and capabilities of 5G beyond the mobile phone. Of course, our customers expect Best Buy to be there to help inspire and support all their technology. Our consultation program continues to be an important differentiator, and advisers are inspiring technology solutions via customer consultations happening in homes, digitally, in stores and via chat and phone. We are also leveraging our consultation program with our partners. For example, customers can schedule an appointment with one of our advisers while shopping on samsung.com.

隨著網路在各個城市的推廣，5G 的接觸仍在成長。當我們進入明年和後年時，它將變得更加主流，並且對我們所有人來說都更容易獲得。我們很高興隨著時間的推移推出新產品，這些產品將利用 5G 的速度和功能，超越手機。當然，我們的客戶希望百思買能夠幫助激發和支持他們的所有技術。我們的諮詢計劃仍然是一個重要的差異化因素，顧問透過在家中、數位化、商店以及透過聊天和電話進行的客戶諮詢來激發技術解決方案。我們也與合作夥伴一起利用我們的諮詢計劃。例如，客戶在 samsung.com 上購物時可以與我們的顧問預約。

On the support side, our total tech support program continues to receive very strong customer ratings and is a unique program that we believe only we can offer. Membership growth recovered after we opened our stores more broadly. We continue to see significant opportunity over time to evolve all of our many customer memberships, which also includes our millions of My Best Buy customers. We purposefully pressed pause on this initiative at the start of the pandemic and are planning to roll out a pilot in the next few months that will leverage our learnings from the material evolution of customer shopping behavior over the past year.

在支援方面，我們的全面技術支援計劃繼續獲得非常高的客戶評價，並且是我們相信只有我們才能提供的獨特計劃。在我們更廣泛地開設商店後，會員成長有所恢復。隨著時間的推移，我們繼續看到發展我們所有眾多客戶會員資格的重大機會，其中還包括我們數百萬的 My Best Buy 客戶。我們在大流行開始時有意暫停了這一舉措，併計劃在未來幾個月內推出一項試點，以利用我們從過去一年客戶購物行為的重大演變中學到的經驗教訓。

I'd also like to update you on our health business more broadly. The pandemic has only served to underscore our purpose and strategy. The adoption of virtual care and telehealth by patients and physicians has been greatly accelerated by COVID-19 and is expected to continue to grow. We see significant opportunity over the long term to make the experience much better for both patients and physicians by providing an integrated seamless technology solution that is easy to use. To that end, our Best Buy health strategy focuses on 3 areas that start with our strength in retail and build to connecting patients and physicians.

我還想向您介紹我們健康業務的更廣泛的最新情況。這場大流行病只是強調了我們的宗旨和策略。 COVID-19 大大加速了患者和醫生對虛擬護理和遠距醫療的採用，並且預計將繼續增長。從長遠來看，我們看到了巨大的機會，可以透過提供易於使用的整合無縫技術解決方案來為患者和醫生提供更好的體驗。為此，我們的百思買健康策略重點在於三個領域，首先是我們在零售方面的優勢，其次是建立在病人和醫生之間的連結。

The first focus area is the consumer health category I spoke about a little earlier. These products are for customers who want to be healthier, sleep better or need to monitor a chronic condition like diabetes or heart disease, for example.

第一個重點領域是我之前談到的消費者健康類別。這些產品適合想要更健康、睡得更好或需要監測糖尿病或心臟病等慢性疾病的客戶。

The second area is active aging, which includes device-based emergency response and other services for Generation A, who wish to continue to live independently in their homes. Active aging builds on the GreatCall, CST and BioSensics acquisitions.

第二個領域是主動老化，其中包括為希望繼續在家中獨立生活的 A 世代提供基於設備的緊急應變和其他服務。積極老化以 GreatCall、CST 和 BioSensics 收購為基礎。

The third focus area is virtual care and includes digital health caring center services that connect patients and physicians to enable virtual care and remote patient monitoring. We provide personal emergency response, remote patient monitoring and care counseling services to payers serving Medicare Advantage and Medicaid populations. And we will expand these services to help people monitor their chronic disease and connect to their physician.

第三個重點領域是虛擬護理，包括連接患者和醫生以實現虛擬護理和遠端患者監控的數位醫療保健中心服務。我們為服務 Medicare Advantage 和 Medicaid 人群的付款人提供個人緊急回應、遠端患者監控和護理諮詢服務。我們將擴大這些服務，以幫助人們監測他們的慢性病並與他們的醫生聯繫。

Our differentiated approach combines Best Buy's in-home and care counseling services with digital health. By digital health, we mean curated monitoring devices packaged with the consumer in mind, with a platform to distribute, activate and test the devices to ensure the consumer can use them and connect to their physician.

我們的差異化方法將百思買的家庭和護理諮詢服務與數位健康相結合。我們所說的數位健康是指以消費者為中心的精心設計的監控設備，並提供一個分發、啟動和測試設備的平台，以確保消費者可以使用它們並與他們的醫生聯繫。

In fiscal '22, we plan to expand the consumer health product assortment and additional devices and services to our active aging business and add new remote patient monitoring offerings and a new technology platform in virtual care. In order to do this, we plan to invest in people, product development and the ongoing development of our health technology platform in our data, analytics and intelligence engines.

在 22 財年，我們計劃擴大消費者健康產品種類以及積極老化業務的附加設備和服務，並添加新的遠端患者監控產品和虛擬護理新技術平台。為了實現這一目標，我們計劃投資於人員、產品開發以及數據、分析和智慧引擎中健康技術平台的持續開發。

In addition to the investments in our health strategy, our investments in technology and automation will be important aspects in defining how our model continues to evolve in the future. As has been our practice for the past 8 years, we have continued our commitment to leverage cost reductions and efficiencies to help offset investments and pressures. Our current target set in 2019 is to achieve an additional $1 billion in annualized cost reductions and efficiencies by the end of fiscal '25. We achieved approximately $340 million toward our new goal during fiscal '21, taking our total to $500 million toward this goal.

除了對健康策略的投資之外，我們對技術和自動化的投資將是定義我們的模式未來如何繼續發展的重要面向。正如我們過去 8 年的做法一樣，我們繼續致力於利用降低成本和提高效率來幫助抵消投資和壓力。我們目前在 2019 年設定的目標是在 25 財年末實現每年額外 10 億美元的成本削減和效率提升。在 21 財年，我們為實現新目標實現了約 3.4 億美元，使實現這一目標的總資金達到 5 億美元。

In summary, during fiscal '21, we managed through the challenging environment in a way that allowed us to accelerate many aspects of our strategy to deliver on our purpose and thrive in a new and forever changed environment. Our teams collectively changed the way we do business at a pace we never imagined, and I must reiterate how proud I am of their perseverance and commitment. As a result, we advanced our 5-year plan both strategically and financially much further than we expected.

總之，在 21 財年期間，我們克服了充滿挑戰的環境，使我們能夠加快策略的許多方面，以實現我們的目標，並在一個永遠變化的新環境中蓬勃發展。我們的團隊以我們從未想過的速度集體改變了我們開展業務的方式，我必須重申，我對他們的毅力和承諾感到多麼自豪。因此，我們在策略上和財務上都比我們預期的更進一步推進了五年計劃。

While we are ahead of plan in several strategic areas, the disruption of the pandemic has also impacted other strategic initiatives. For example, while our health business has proven to be even more strategically relevant to our mission, the pandemic certainly disrupted the progress and the path forward will take time. We also still have meaningful opportunity to evolve our membership and services models to drive loyalty. In addition, we will need to invest in our future as we proactively evolve all the channels of our business to deliver amazing customer experiences in a world where half of the revenue might be initiated online.

雖然我們在幾個戰略領​​域領先於計劃，但疫情的破壞也影響了其他戰略舉措。例如，雖然我們的健康業務已被證明與我們的使命更具策略相關性，但疫情肯定會擾亂進展，前進的道路需要時間。我們仍然有有意義的機會來發展我們的會員和服務模式以提高忠誠度。此外，我們需要對未來進行投資，因為我們積極發展我們的所有業務管道，以便在一半收入可能來自線上的世界中提供令人驚嘆的客戶體驗。

All that being said, we see a path that leads to margin expansion beyond what we articulated at our last investor update. In fiscal '22, we expect our operating income rate to be lower than fiscal '21's 5.8% operating income rate as we continue to navigate and cycle impacts of the pandemic while investing in our strategy, as Matt will discuss. We are still in the midst of the pandemic. So we are not updating with a specific metric, but we see long-term non-GAAP operating income rate that is beyond the 5% fiscal '25 target we introduced in September 2019.

話雖如此，我們看到了一條導致利潤率擴大的道路，超出了我們在上次投資者更新中闡述的範圍。在 22 財年，我們預計我們的營業收入將低於 21 財年 5.8% 的營業收入，因為我們將繼續應對這一流行病的影響，同時投資我們的策略，正如馬特將討論的那樣。我們仍處於大流行之中。因此，我們不會更新具體指標，但我們看到長期非 GAAP 營業利潤率超出了我們在 2019 年 9 月推出的 25 財年 5% 的目標。

Now I would like to turn the call over to Matt for details on our results and insights on our outlook for fiscal '22.

現在，我想將電話轉給馬特，以了解有關我們業績的詳細資訊以及對 22 財年前景的見解。

Good morning. Our financial results for the year far surpassed what we thought was possible entering the year. We are leading fiscal '21 with an even healthier balance sheet than we -- than when we started the year and saw our non-GAAP operating income rate expand 90 basis points versus the prior year. The rate expansion was possible due to both our ability to capitalize on the elevated demand for technology and by reducing spend early in the year in certain discretionary areas beyond the unknown -- based on the unknown situation we were facing at the beginning of the pandemic. We also accelerated strategies that allowed us to begin adjusting our cost structure to what we believe will be a permanent shift in how customers want to shop. Despite the difficult decisions we made, throughout the year, we remain committed on investing in areas we felt were most crucial to delivering our future growth plans.

早安.我們今年的財務表現遠遠超出了我們今年的預期。與年初相比，我們的 21 財年資產負債表更加健康，我們的非 GAAP 營業利潤率比上年增長了 90 個基點。利率擴張之所以成為可能，是因為我們有能力利用對技術需求的增加，並根據我們在疫情開始時面臨的未知情況，在年初減少了某些未知領域的支出。我們也加快了策略的實施，使我們能夠開始調整成本結構，我們相信這將永久改變客戶的購物方式。儘管我們做出了艱難的決定，但全年我們仍然致力於投資於我們認為對實現未來成長計畫最關鍵的領域。

Let me now share more details specific to our fourth quarter. On Enterprise revenue of $16.9 billion, we delivered non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $3.48, an increase of 20% versus last year. Our non-GAAP operating income rate of 6.9% increased 40 basis points. This rate expansion was driven by approximately 90 basis points of leverage from the higher sales volume on our SG&A, which was partially offset by a 60 basis point decline in our gross profit rate. In addition, a lower effective tax rate had an $0.08 favorable year-over-year impact on our non-GAAP diluted EPS.

現在讓我分享有關第四季度的更多詳細資訊。企業營收為 169 億美元，非 GAAP 攤薄後每股收益為 3.48 美元，比去年增長 20%。我們的非 GAAP 營業利潤率為 6.9%，提高了 40 個基點。這項利率擴張是由我們的銷售、一般管理費用較高銷售量帶來的約 90 個基點的槓桿推動的，這被我們毛利率下降 60 個基點部分抵消。此外，較低的有效稅率對我們的非 GAAP 攤薄每股收益產生了 0.08 美元的同比有利影響。

In our Domestic segment, revenue for the quarter increased 11% to $15.4 billion, an all-time high for revenue in a single quarter. Comparable sales growth of 12% was partially offset by the loss of revenue from stores that were permanently closed in the past year.

在國內業務領域，本季營收成長 11%，達到 154 億美元，創單季營收歷史新高。 12% 的可比較銷售額成長被去年永久關閉的商店收入損失部分抵消。

From a merchandising perspective, we had broad-based strength across most of our categories, with the largest drivers of comparable growth coming from computing, appliances, gaming, virtual reality and home theater. This growth was partially offset by declines in headphones and mobile phones.

從銷售角度來看，我們在大多數類別中都擁有廣泛的實力，可比成長的最大推動力來自計算、家電、遊戲、虛擬實境和家庭劇院。這一增長被耳機和手機的下滑部分抵消。

Turning now to gross profit. The Domestic non-GAAP gross profit rate declined 50 basis points to 20.7%, primarily driven by supply chain costs associated with a higher mix of online revenue. In the fourth quarter, our online sales were 43% of our overall Domestic sales in the quarter compared to 25% last year. Although it was a smaller impact than the supply chain cost, our category mix was also a pressure this quarter. These items were partially offset by a promotional environment that was more favorable compared to last year. Our International non-GAAP gross profit rate decreased 180 basis points to 20.8%, primarily due to increased supply chain costs from a higher mix of online sales and a lower sales mix from the higher-margin services category.

現在轉向毛利。國內非 GAAP 毛利率下降 50 個基點至 20.7%，主要是由於線上收入組合增加相關的供應鏈成本。第四季度，我們的線上銷售額佔該季度國內總銷售額的 43%，而去年為 25%。雖然影響比供應鏈成本小，但我們的品類組合在本季也是一個壓力。這些項目被比去年更有利的促銷環境部分抵銷。我們的國際非 GAAP 毛利率下降 180 個基點至 20.8%，主要是由於線上銷售組合增加以及利潤率較高的服務類別銷售組合減少導致供應鏈成本增加。

Moving next to SG&A. Domestic non-GAAP SG&A increased 5% compared to last year and decreased 90 basis points as a percentage of revenue. As expected, the largest drivers of the expense increase versus last year were: one, higher incentive compensation for corporate and field employees of approximately $55 million; two, increased variable costs associated with higher sales volume, which included items such as credit card processing fees; and three, technology investments, which also include support of our health initiatives. These increased expenses were partially offset by lower store payroll expense.

接下來是SG&A。國內非 GAAP SG&A 較去年成長 5%，佔營收的百分比下降 90 個基點。正如預期，與去年相比，費用增加的最大推動因素是：一是公司和現場員工的激勵薪酬提高了約 5,500 萬美元；第二，與銷售增加相關的變動成本增加，其中包括信用卡手續費等項目；第三，技術投資，其中還包括對我們的健康倡議的支持。這些增加的費用被商店工資費用的減少部分抵消。

Let me share some additional context on the increased expense from our technology investments. Technology has, and increasingly will be, the foundation of how we will operate and how we accelerate our strategy. This includes continued technology investments and capabilities to support our health initiatives, increasing and improving our digital interactions with customers, simplifying task in our stores and building upon our analytics to support decisions we make on a daily basis. We are also modernizing our systems and tools as well as utilizing more cloud-based solutions. For example, we are partnering with Microsoft to leverage its cloud to help power our health care offerings. In addition, we are transforming the structure of our technology teams by bringing more head count in-house versus using contract workers.

讓我分享一些有關我們的技術投資費用增加的其他背景資訊。科技已經並將越來越成為我們如何運作以及如何加速我們的策略的基礎。這包括持續的技術投資和能力來支持我們的健康計劃、增加和改善我們與客戶的數位互動、簡化我們商店的任務以及基於我們的分析來支持我們每天做出的決策。我們也對我們的系統和工具進行現代化改造，並利用更多基於雲端的解決方案。例如，我們正在與微軟合作，利用其雲端來幫助支援我們的醫療保健產品。此外，我們正在改變技術團隊的結構，增加內部人員而不是使用合約工。

Let me next provide more context on $129 million in restructuring charges from this quarter, which also include a $13 million benefit within cost of sales. About $88 million of the charges related to changes in our Domestic segment to realign our organizational structure with our strategic priorities. The remaining $41 million is primarily related to our previously announced plans to exit operations in Mexico. We don't anticipate any additional material charges in Mexico in future quarters, and all of our store locations in Mexico will be closed by the end of Q1.

接下來讓我提供有關本季度 1.29 億美元重組費用的更多背景信息，其中還包括銷售成本中的 1300 萬美元收益。其中約 8,800 萬美元的費用與我們國內部門的變化有關，目的是根據我們的策略重點重新調整我們的組織結構。剩餘的 4,100 萬美元主要與我們先前宣布的退出墨西哥業務的計劃有關。我們預計未來幾季不會在墨西哥收取任何額外的材料費用，並且我們在墨西哥的所有商店都將在第一季末關閉。

Moving to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $5.5 billion in cash and short-term investments. At the end of Q4, our inventory balance was approximately 8% higher than last year's comparable period to support the current demand for technology. Approximately half of the year-over-year increase is related to inventory still in transit. Although trends have improved from earlier in the year, we are still experiencing constraints driven by the high demand in several of our key categories.

轉向資產負債表。本季結束時，我們擁有 55 億美元的現金和短期投資。截至第四季末，我們的庫存餘額比去年同期高出約 8%，以支援當前的技術需求。年比增長的大約一半與仍在運輸途中的庫存有關。儘管趨勢較今年稍早有所改善，但我們仍然面臨著幾個關鍵類別的高需求所帶來的限制。

During fiscal '21, we returned $880 million to shareholders through $568 million in dividends and $312 million in share repurchases. We resumed share repurchases during the fourth quarter after suspending activity last March. This morning, we announced a 27% increase in our quarterly dividend to $0.70 per share. We also announced our plans to spend at least $2 billion on share repurchases in fiscal '22. In addition, our Board of Directors approved a new $5 billion share repurchase authorization replacing the existing authorization dated February 2019, which had a $1.7 billion in repurchases remaining at the end of fiscal '21.

在 21 財年，我們透過 5.68 億美元的股利和 3.12 億美元的股票回購向股東返還 8.8 億美元。繼去年三月暫停活動後，我們在第四季恢復了股票回購。今天早上，我們宣布將季度股息增加 27% 至每股 0.70 美元。我們也宣布計劃在 22 財年花費至少 20 億美元進行股票回購。此外，我們的董事會也批准了一項新的 50 億美元股票回購授權，取代了 2019 年 2 月的現有授權，截至 21 財年末，現有授權還剩 17 億美元。

As we look to our fiscal '22, we are not providing our traditional guidance, but I would like to share our planning assumptions as we enter the year. As we start fiscal '22, the demand for technology remains at elevated levels, and the sales growth momentum we saw in January has continued through the first 3 weeks of February. The uncertainty around the administration of the COVID vaccine and the subsequent impact to customer demand and shopping patterns makes it difficult to predict how sustainable these trends will be. Other factors to consider include government stimulus actions and the risk of continued high unemployment.

當我們展望 22 財年時，我們沒有提供傳統的指導，但我想在進入這一年時分享我們的規劃假設。隨著 22 財年的開始，對技術的需求仍然處於較高水平，我們在 1 月看到的銷售成長勢頭一直持續到 2 月的前 3 週。新冠疫苗管理的不確定性以及隨後對客戶需求和購物模式的影響使得很難預測這些趨勢的可持續性。其他需要考慮的因素包括政府刺激行動和持續高失業率的風險。

With that being said, we estimate fiscal '22 total comparable sales growth in the range of down 2% to up 1%. This range reflects a scenario in which customers resume or accelerate spend in areas that were slowed during the pandemic, such as travel and dining out in the back half of this year. Overall, we expect growth to be positive in the first half of the year and then negative in the back half as we lap strong comp growth in Q3 and Q4 of fiscal '21. We will update our expectations during the year, if needed, as there is more clarity to the various factors driving our outlook. Regardless, we anticipate revenue for fiscal '22 will be higher than what we would have expected to be at this time last year.

話雖如此，我們預計 22 財年的可比銷售總額成長率將在下降 2% 到上升 1% 的範圍內。這個範圍反映了客戶在今年下半年恢復或加速疫情期間放緩的領域支出的情況，例如旅行和外出用餐。總體而言，我們預計上半年將出現正成長，然後下半年將出現負成長，因為我們在 21 財年第三季和第四季實現了強勁的複合成長。如果需要的話，我們將在今年更新我們的預期，因為推動我們前景的各種因素更加清晰。無論如何，我們預計 22 財年的營收將高於去年此時的預期。

From a gross profit rate perspective, we are planning for a non-GAAP rate that is slightly below our fiscal '21 rate. We anticipate more promotional pressure than we experienced this past year as inventory becomes more available and competition likely increases. As Corie mentioned, we are planning for online sales to represent approximately 40% of our Domestic sales in fiscal '22, which is only slightly lower than our mix in fiscal '21. As a result, supply chain-related costs are not expected to have a material impact on our rate compared to the prior year.

從毛利率的角度來看，我們計劃採用略低於 21 財年毛利率的非 GAAP 毛利率。隨著庫存變得更多，競爭可能加劇，我們預計促銷壓力將比去年更大。正如 Corie 所提到的，我們計劃在 22 財年，線上銷售將佔國內銷售額的 40% 左右，僅略低於我們在 21 財年的銷售組合。因此，與前一年相比，供應鏈相關成本預計不會對我們的費率產生重大影響。

From an SG&A standpoint, we're expecting dollars to increase as a percentage in the low single-digit range. There are a number of factors driving the expected increase. First, we expect our SG&A increase -- expense to increase approximately $100 million on a year-over-year basis as we lap COVID-related decisions we made last year to preserve liquidity. This includes returning to more normalized spend on items such as 401(k) company match, advertising spend, store overhead items such as maintenance. This $100 million increase includes the benefit of lapping the $40 million donation to the Best Buy Foundation we made in Q3 of fiscal '21.

從銷售、管理及行政費用的角度來看，我們預期美元成長率將在較低的個位數範圍內成長。有許多因素推動了預期的成長。首先，我們預計我們的 SG&A 費用將年增約 1 億美元，因為我們放棄了去年為保持流動性而做出的與新冠疫情相關的決策。這包括恢復更標準化的支出，例如 401(k) 公司匹配、廣告支出、商店管理費用（例如維護）。這 1 億美元的增加包括我們在 21 財年第三季向百思買基金會捐贈的 4,000 萬美元的收益。

Second, we plan to increase our investments in depreciation -- and depreciation in support of technology and our health initiatives by approximately $150 million compared to fiscal '21. Third, we expect store payroll costs to be lower compared to fiscal '21, even after including the impact of lapping $81 million of employee retention credits from the CARES Act we received in the first half of fiscal '21. There are clearly other puts and takes that we will manage through, some that will be more impactful in 1 quarter versus the next, but the previous items are the key drivers of how we are viewing the full year.

其次，與 21 財年相比，我們計劃增加折舊投資，以及用於支援技術和健康計劃的折舊投資約 1.5 億美元。第三，我們預計商店薪資成本將低於 21 財年，即使考慮到我們在 21 財年上半年收到的 CARES 法案中 8,100 萬美元的員工保留信貸的影響。顯然，我們還將管理其他一些看跌期權和看跌期權，其中一些在第一季比下一個季度影響更大，但前面的項目是我們如何看待全年的關鍵驅動因素。

Based on the drivers I just outlined, our expectation is for our operating income rate to decline on a year-over-year basis, which is primarily a result of our increased investments in technology and in support of our health initiatives as well as the impact of lapping the temporary actions from fiscal '21 I just shared. In relation to capital expenditures, we expect to spend approximately $750 million to $850 million during fiscal '22 compared to $713 million in fiscal '21.

根據我剛才概述的驅動因素，我們的預期是我們的營業收入將同比下降，這主要是由於我們增加了技術投資和支持我們的健康計劃以及影響採納我剛剛分享的 21 財年的臨時行動。就資本支出而言，我們預計 22 財年支出約為 7.5 億至 8.5 億美元，而 21 財年支出為 7.13 億美元。

Now I will provide some color on Q1. We expect comparable sales to be approximately 20%. As a reminder, in Q1 of last year, we closed all of our stores to customer shopping and moved to curbside service only for the last 7 weeks of the quarter. We anticipate our gross profit rate will be slightly lower than last year due to more promotional environment and increased delivery expense. As a reminder, we suspended in-home services for about 5 weeks during last year's Q1.

現在我將為 Q1 提供一些顏色。我們預計可比較銷售額約 20%。提醒一下，去年第一季度，我們關閉了所有商店，禁止顧客購物，並僅在該季度的最後 7 週轉向路邊服務。由於更多的促銷環境和增加的運輸費用，我們預計我們的毛利率將略低於去年。提醒一下，我們在去年第一季暫停了大約 5 週的上門服務。

We expect SG&A dollars to increase by approximately 10%. This increase is primarily related to incentive compensation as we suspended all expense during Q1 of last year for corporate and field employees as well as the gratitude- and vaccination-related bonuses that Corie discussed. These items combined are expected to result in more than $100 million in additional expense versus last year. In addition, we anticipate increased expense from our investments in technology and health as well as higher variable expense associated with expected growth.

我們預計 SG&A 美元將成長約 10%。這一增長主要與激勵性薪酬有關，因為我們在去年第一季度暫停了公司和現場員工的所有費用，以及科里討論的感恩和疫苗接種相關的獎金。這些項目加起來預計將比去年增加 1 億美元以上的額外費用。此外，我們預計技術和健康投資的費用將會增加，與預期成長相關的變動費用也會增加。

I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

我現在將把電話轉給接線員詢問問題。

(Operator Instructions) We can now take our first question from Anthony Chukumba of Loop Capital Markets.

（操作員說明）我們現在可以回答 Loop Capital Markets 的 Anthony Chukumba 提出的第一個問題。

Congratulations on a strong finish to an incredible year, particularly given the COVID-19 dystopia that we're all living through.

恭喜您在令人難以置信的一年中取得圓滿成功，特別是考慮到我們都正在經歷的 COVID-19 反烏托邦。

So my question was on the competitive landscape. I mean it sounds like -- or I would guess that you're expecting things to be more competitive in 2021, as you said, as the world sort of returns to normal compared to maybe what you saw in 2020. But just would love to have your perspective on that. So that's my one question.

所以我的問題是關於競爭格局。我的意思是，這聽起來像是——或者我猜你預計2021 年的競爭會更加激烈，正如你所說，與你在2020 年看到的情況相比，世界會恢復正常。樂意對此有你的看法。這就是我的一個問題。

Yes. I'll start, and Matt can add color. I think we would expect, and we actually said it as Matt provided the outlook, there to be a higher level of promotionality as we start to lap some of the strengths obviously from last year, and you start to get into more normalized inventory positions throughout the year. And so part of the color, I think, that Matt provided for next year would imply that. And we likely are going to have to invest a bit more to remain price competitive, which, of course, since the beginning has been our priority. So Anthony, I think your intuition is right there that we would expect things to normalize a bit in terms of promotionality.

是的。我先開始，馬特可以添加顏色。我認為我們預計，而且我們實際上是在馬特提供前景時這麼說的，隨著我們開始明顯地從去年開始汲取一些優勢，將會有更高水平的促銷活動，並且您開始進入更加標準化的庫存狀況那一年。因此，我認為，馬特為明年提供的部分顏色將暗示這一點。我們可能需要進行更多投資才能保持價格競爭力，當然，從一開始這就是我們的首要任務。所以安東尼，我認為你的直覺是正確的，我們希望促銷方面的事情能夠稍微正常化。

And we can now take our next question from Chris Horvers of JPMorgan.

現在我們可以回答摩根大通的克里斯霍弗斯提出的下一個問題。

Starting with a longer-term question and then I have a follow-up on something more near term. As you think about migrating to the new model, obviously, in the consumer electronics business, warranties and accessory attachment are really important. So can you talk about the -- how you see those attachment rates in store versus a BOPUS and versus online? And are you building in expectations that you can improve that attachment rate as the consumer becomes more digital?

從一個長期問題開始，然後我對更近期的問題進行跟進。當您考慮遷移到新型號時，顯然，在消費電子業務中，保固和配件配件非常重要。那麼您能否談談您如何看待實體店與 BOPUS 以及線上商店的附著率？隨著消費者變得更加數位化，您是否期望能夠提高依戀率？

So I'm going to take a little bit of a step back here in that. I think we strongly believe our competitive advantage is our ability to provide both support and advice across all the channel -- any channel that anyone wants to shop in. And obviously, there are different challenges and different modes of doing that across the different channels. But regardless, we know our employee -- or our customers, excuse me, are looking for both that advice and that support across channels. And we've been investing in our capabilities and technology in order to deliver that.

所以我要退後一步。我認為我們堅信我們的競爭優勢在於我們能夠在所有管道（任何人想要購物的管道）中提供支援和建議。但無論如何，我們知道我們的員工——或者我們的客戶，對不起，正在尋求跨渠道的建議和支持。為了實現這一目標，我們一直在投資我們的能力和技術。

We've also talked about the fact that what our customers expect from us from a support perspective has changed over time. And it's less about that break-fix support, although that's still important, and we need to be there when that happens. And it's much more about supporting your technology seamlessly across your devices. And it's more about is my printer staying on my network or is my content streaming the way that I want it to. And hence, the reason we've been migrating to a model that looks more like total tech support, which provides you obviously coverage for all the technology devices in your home, regardless of where you bought them.

我們也談到了這樣一個事實：客戶對我們的支援期望隨著時間的推移而發生了變化。與故障修復支援無關，儘管這仍然很重要，並且當這種情況發生時我們需要在那裡。更重要的是跨裝置無縫支援您的技術。更重要的是我的印表機是否留在我的網路上，或者我的內容是否按照我想要的方式傳輸。因此，我們一直在遷移到看起來更像全面技術支援的模型，該模型顯然可以為您家中的所有技術設備提供覆蓋，無論您在哪裡購買它們。

And so it's not just about now -- for your question specifically, digitally, it's not just about the buying experience. It's actually about using digital across all aspects of the shopping experience. And so we have been working, and we are continuing to work, and as you think about the investments that Matt mentioned in technology, we're investing in things like video chats, virtual consultations, adding digital checkout in the app. This is still all empowered by our amazing Blue Shirts who are actually creating these experiences. We're just creating them digitally.

所以這不僅僅是現在——對於你的問題，具體來說，從數位角度來說，這不僅僅是購買體驗的問題。它實際上是在購物體驗的各個方面使用數位技術。因此，我們一直在努力，並將繼續努力，當你想到馬特提到的技術投資時，我們正在投資視訊聊天、虛擬諮詢、在應用程式中添加數位結帳等方面。這一切仍然歸功於我們令人驚嘆的藍衫軍，他們實際上正在創造這些體驗。我們只是以數位方式創建它們。

And so while the gross margin rate has been lower online, over time, it's constantly improving because we're constantly improving that customer experience. And we are seeing increases in our ability to transact total tech support or digital consultations. We're seeing more in-home adviser leads online as an example. So I think it's hard to replace that expertise and support you get by visiting our stores, but we are seeing customers getting more comfortable with experiencing some of those things online. And it's less about exactly which channels that's happening and more about how to in every channel we interact with you. We're constantly trying to improve that experience. So to your point and your question, it does become more natural to make these buying decisions in a digital environment.

因此，雖然線上毛利率較低，但隨著時間的推移，它正在不斷提高，因為我們不斷改善客戶體驗。我們看到我們處理全面技術支援或數位諮詢的能力不斷增強。例如，我們看到越來越多的家庭顧問在網路上進行引導。因此，我認為很難取代您透過造訪我們的商店所獲得的專業知識和支持，但我們看到客戶越來越習慣在網路上體驗其中的一些東西。重點不在於到底發生了哪些管道，而是我們如何在每個管道中與您互動。我們一直在努力改善這種體驗。因此，就您的觀點和問題而言，在數位環境中做出這些購買決定確實變得更加自然。

Understood. And then on the first quarter gross margin and inventory and promotional environment, I guess, you have a very strong comp guide in the first quarter, and it doesn't sound like you're fully in stock on items. So why would you expect a more promotional environment in the first quarter? I would -- is that something you're seeing already? It's sort of early. I would certainly expect that to be the case as you progress through the year, but it would seem like all the pieces put together, it wouldn't seem like the promotional environment would really change year-over-year.

明白了。然後，在第一季的毛利率、庫存和促銷環境方面，我想，您在第一季有一個非常強大的比較指南，而且聽起來您的商品庫存並不充足。那麼，為什麼您會期望第一季會有更多的促銷環境呢？我會——這是你已經看到的嗎？有點早了。我當然希望隨著這一年的進展，情況會如此，但似乎所有的部分都放在一起，促銷環境似乎不會真正逐年變化。

Yes, I'll start and then either Mike or Corie can add. Yes, I think despite the fact that we do expect some elevated sales in Q1 as we start to enter in. Especially the latter part of Q1, we're going to be seeing a competitive environment where a lot of our competitors are comping some big numbers of themselves. And so we're just aware of where that might take technology and how we need to stay competitive in that environment.

是的，我先開始，然後麥克或科里可以補充。是的，我認為，儘管事實上，隨著我們開始進入，我們確實預計第一季的銷售額會有所上升。許多競爭對手都在競爭一些大的產品他們自己的數量。因此，我們只知道科技可能會走向何方，以及我們需要如何在這種環境中保持競爭力。

And so you're right, there's -- the tail of Q1 is going to be leading up to the time we closed our stores, and then we closed our stores for a bit of time in the last several weeks. So there's a lot of different areas within Q1, and we do think that towards the tail end of it, we'll start to see a bit more promotions to competitiveness as we start to see competitors react to their own situations.

所以你是對的，第一季的尾部將導致我們關閉商店，然後我們在過去幾週內關閉了商店一段時間。因此，第一季有很多不同的領域，我們確實認為，在接近尾聲時，隨著我們開始看到競爭對手對自己的情況做出反應，我們將開始看到更多的競爭力提升。

And we can now take our next question from Michael Lasser of UBS.

現在我們可以回答瑞銀 (UBS) 的 Michael Lasser 提出的下一個問題。

I mean when you laid out your comp lines for the year, how did you factor in the potential for demand being pulled forward, not just the tougher compares you're going to face in the back half? And do you think the potential for demand being pulled forward, is this for a multiyear period? Or is it unfold because of this wallet year shift back to leisure categories, it'll happen pretty quickly and be sustained just for a short period of time? And then I have one follow-up on your longer-term guidance.

我的意思是，當您制定今年的競爭路線時，您如何考慮需求提前的潛力，而不僅僅是下半年將面臨的更嚴峻的比較？您認為需求潛力是否會持續數年？或者它的展開是因為今年錢包年轉向休閒類別，它會很快發生並且只會持續很短的一段時間？然後我對您的長期指導進行了跟進。

This is Matt. I'll take that, and Corie and Mike can jump in. I think fundamentally, if we step all the way back, we believe the role of technology in people's lives is only intensified as a result of the pandemic. And the proliferation of devices in people's lives will continue to support advancement as innovation continues. So -- and the role we play in that is extremely important and even stronger than it was before. And so as we look at next year and we think about it being probably a tale of 2 halves with growth in the first and then declines in the latter, I think we still see opportunity for innovation to keep fundamentally technology important in people's lives.

這是馬特。我會接受這一點，科里和麥克可以介入。隨著創新的不斷進行，人們生活中設備的激增將繼續支持進步。因此，我們在其中扮演的角色非常重要，甚至比以前更強大。因此，當我們展望明年時，我們認為這可能是一個兩半的故事，前半部分增長，後半部分下降，我認為我們仍然看到創新的機會，以保持技術在人們生活中的重要地位。

Clearly, at a micro level there, you could imagine some categories could see a little bit of pull at any given point. But there's also an element of personal savings rates being so elevated now. Right now, they're about 14%, which is twice what they were going into the pandemic. So there are a lot of puts and takes in the year. Fundamentally, the guide for next year really incorporates a view that as we get towards maybe the middle of the year, we start to see that shifting of consumer behavior back to places that were a little muted as the pandemic hit. So we wouldn't characterize it as a pullback but just a changing how people deciding to use their wallet.

顯然，在微觀層面上，你可以想像某些類別在任何給定點都會受到一點拉力。但現在個人儲蓄率如此高還有一個因素。目前，這一數字約為 14%，是疫情爆發時的兩倍。所以這一年裡有很多的投入與投入。從根本上說，明年的指南確實包含了這樣一種觀點，即當我們接近年中時，我們開始看到消費者行為轉移回疫情爆發時稍微平靜的地方。因此，我們不會將其描述為回調，而只是改變人們決定使用錢包的方式。

I think no matter what, Michael, people's use of technology in their homes, in particular, has changed forever. You have more proliferation and you're going to have more people upgrading more products and more people trying to make different ecosystems all try to work together in their homes, which I think, regardless of the puts and takes in any one given year, is a good thing strategically for us over the longer term.

我認為無論如何，邁克爾，人們在家裡使用科技的方式已經永遠改變了。你會有更多的擴散，你將會有更多的人升級更多的產品，更多的人試圖讓不同的生態系統都嘗試在他們的家中一起工作，我認為，無論任何一年的投入和投入如何，這都是從長遠來看，這對我們來說是一件策略上的好事。

Okay. And my follow-up is on the comments around your expectation for your operating margin being above 5% or the level that you had laid out at your analyst meeting a couple of years ago. And obviously, at that time, it was impossible to predict the e-commerce penetration in your business would be as high as it is today this quickly.

好的。我的後續行動是關於您對營運利潤率高於 5% 或幾年前在分析師會議上提出的水平的預期的評論。顯然，當時不可能預測電子商務在您的業務中的滲透率會如此之快地達到今天的水平。

But presumably, now that's a drag relative to what you expected for your profitability back then, is the offset or the entirety, the offset and even more this new model where you're going to operate a little more efficiently at the store level? Or is there other factors that are driving this expectation that your profitability is going to be higher than what you expected a couple of years ago?

但據推測，現在這相對於您當時對盈利能力的預期是一個拖累，是抵消還是整體、抵消，甚至是這種新模式，您將在商店層面上更有效地運營？或者是否還有其他因素促使您預期您的獲利能力將高於您幾年前的預期？

So I'm going to start with a bit of a strategic lens on that. And then I think Matt can chime in a little bit on the profitability of the channel's kind of question. When we set that target in 2019, the good news is our strategic hypothesis was spot on. The interesting part is we have made a massive amount of progress even faster. The customer has made a massive amount of progress. We knew digital penetration was going to grow pretty substantially. What we didn't know is that it was going to double in the span of a year.

因此，我將從戰略角度開始討論這一點。然後我認為馬特可以就該頻道的盈利能力問題發表一些看法。當我們在 2019 年設定這個目標時，好消息是我們的策略假設是正確的。有趣的是，我們取得了巨大的進步，甚至更快。客戶已經取得了巨大的進步。我們知道數位滲透率將會大幅成長。我們不知道的是，它會在一年內翻倍。

And so we need to take, and we are taking, the appropriate time to think about the longer-term given these seismic changes that we've seen. And there are lots of uncertainties, including the fact we're still in the middle of a pandemic. And so we're testing and piloting a number of different models that are going to balance this kind of urgency for change with the need to learn how the customer is changing their behavior.

因此，考慮到我們所看到的這些巨大變化，我們需要並且正在採取適當的時間來考慮更長期的問題。還有很多不確定性，包括我們仍處於大流行之中。因此，我們正在測試和試點許多不同的模型，這些模型將平衡這種變革的緊迫性與了解客戶如何改變其行為的需要。

But what we can see in front of us and then what we can see based on the plans we have in place is that we do think there is that room for operating rate expansion. And Matt will talk a little bit about what we're seeing even in the profitability of the channel.

但我們可以看到，根據我們現有的計劃，我們確實認為開工率還有擴張的空間。馬特將談談我們在該管道的盈利能力方面所看到的情況。

Yes. If you think about the channels, which are increasingly hard to kind of pull apart, as you see elevated levels of online sales, you see a lot more SG&A leverage because there's a lower fixed cost basis to that. And so while the gross margins tend to be lower because they don't -- our stores provide expert service and support that only our people can give, we do see SG&A cost structure that is less. And so our job is to actually how to optimize both those channels together to provide the same level of expertise and support but also allow the support and convenience as they work together. But that fixed cost leverage that you get online is important as you start to look further in the year with elevated levels of online mix.

是的。如果你考慮越來越難以分開的管道，當你看到線上銷售水準的提高時，你會看到更多的銷售、管理及行政費用槓桿，因為固定成本基礎較低。因此，雖然毛利率往往較低，因為我們的商店提供只有我們的員工才能提供的專家服務和支持，但我們確實看到 SG&A 成本結構較低。因此，我們的工作實際上是如何同時優化這兩個管道，以提供相同程度的專業知識和支持，同時在它們協同工作時提供支持和便利。但是，當您開始進一步關註今年線上組合水準的提高時，您在網路上獲得的固定成本槓桿非常重要。

And we can now take our next question from Peter Keith of Piper Sandler.

現在我們可以回答 Piper Sandler 的 Peter Keith 提出的下一個問題。

It's actually Bobby Friedner on for Peter. I just want to ask about your full year gross margin guidance and expectations to be down a little bit. I was wondering if you could discuss some of the puts and takes there. We start to see it down a little bit after 60 basis points of decline this year and expectations for online mix to moderate that. So just wanted to -- any detail there?

實際上是鮑比·弗里德納（Bobby Friedner）代替彼得。我只想問一下你們的全年毛利率指引和預期會略有下降。我想知道您是否可以討論其中的一些看跌期權和賣出期權。在今年下降 60 個基點之後，我們開始看到它略有下降，並且預計線上混合將緩解這種情況。所以只是想——有什麼細節嗎？

Sure. So if we think about gross profit next year, what we said was it would be slightly down. I think the biggest parts of that are a belief that, like we said, that there'll be a bit more promotionality and competitive environment as we start to get into the latter half of Q1 going forward. There's also periods of time where we had some -- our stores closed and we did -- we weren't able to offer all of our services for installations and delivery. There's a little bit of pressure there.

當然。因此，如果我們考慮明年的毛利，我們所說的是會略有下降。我認為其中最重要的部分是相信，正如我們所說，隨著我們開始進入第一季後半段，將會有更多的促銷和競爭環境。也有一段時間，我們的商店關門了，我們無法提供所有的安裝和交付服務。那裡有一點壓力。

In addition, I think with online mix being assumed at 40% versus 43% this last year, is that a meaningful difference in terms of the impact of supply chain costs. So that's why we don't think supply chain costs fundamentally are much of a benefit as you start to move into next year, as you are assuming the same amount of sales between the fundamentally 2 years. I also think within there, you've got a little bit of promotional favorability It was offset by a little bit of category mix changes that will happen throughout the year. So fundamentally, it's that assumption that online mix will stay pretty much the same.

此外，我認為假設線上混合比例為 40%，而去年為 43%，這對於供應鏈成本的影響而言是一個有意義的差異。因此，這就是為什麼我們認為，當您開始進入明年時，供應鏈成本從根本上來說並沒有多大好處，因為您假設基本上兩年之間的銷售額相同。我還認為，在那裡，你有一點促銷優惠，它被全年發生的一點類別組合變化所抵消。所以從根本上來說，這是在線組合將保持基本不變的假設。

I appreciate that. Maybe just separately, quickly. Starting on semiconductor shortages that have been going forward recently. Can you discuss how this might be impacting product availability currently or perhaps in the coming quarters?

我很感激。也許只是分開，很快。從最近持續出現的半導體短缺開始。您能否討論一下這可能如何影響當前或未來幾季的產品可用性？

Yes. No, it's Mike Mohan here. Thanks for the question. I think it was around semiconductor availability in shortage, which there's clearly a lot of that in the news right now because we need semiconductors in almost everything that's being made. We feel pretty good because we have long-term plans with our vendors upstream for finished goods, whether they're coming from Asia or parts of the rest of the world. And there's sporadic shortages just based on demand peaks right now. Our line of sight to incoming inventory feels good on where we're at. I think there'll be some impacts in other industries, but I wouldn't be the expert to speak about it here.

是的。不，我是麥克莫漢。謝謝你的提問。我認為這是關於半導體供應短缺的問題，現在的新聞中顯然有很多這樣的情況，因為我們幾乎所有正在製造的東西都需要半導體。我們感覺非常好，因為我們與上游成品供應商制定了長期計劃，無論他們來自亞洲還是世界其他地區。目前，由於需求高峰，出現了零星的短缺。我們對進貨庫存的視線感覺良好。我認為這會對其他行業產生一些影響，但我在這裡不是在談論它的專家。

And we can now take our next question from Joe Feldman of Telsey Advisory Group.

現在我們可以回答特爾西諮詢集團的喬·費爾德曼提出的下一個問題。

Wanted to ask on inventory, how we should think about inventory through this year. It sounded like you're still a little chasing in some categories where there's some lightness. But I was thinking as you do get back into stock and inventory was up 8.5% or so this past quarter, which seemed like in a better position, maybe you could just take us through the year how to think about it, like should we end the year or come through the year up a little bit of inventory, down a little bit? How do we think about it?

想問一下庫存，今年我們該如何考慮庫存。聽起來你仍然在某些類別中追求一些輕鬆的東西。但我在想，當你確實恢復庫存時，上個季度庫存增加了 8.5% 左右，這似乎處於更好的位置，也許你可以帶我們回顧這一年如何思考它，就像我們應該結束一樣還是說今年庫存量上升一點點、下降一點點？我們如何看待這個問題？

Joe, it's Mike. I'll start and Matt or Corie can chime in. We feel better about our inventory position now versus the last 4 calls we've had. So I'll start with that because we've finally gotten back into better stock. That said, we still have constraints in parts of our business that we don't think will solve themselves in the first half of this year. Gaming is a good example. We have yet to put the new generation of gaming consoles into our stores. We anticipate to do that soon, but we haven't done that because there just hasn't been enough inventory to meet demand. So those are some of the things that, pandemic aside, it would have likely been constrained and is only more heightened based on people wanting to dramatically change their at-home experiences.

喬，是麥克。我先開始，Matt 或 Corie 可以插話。所以我將從這個開始，因為我們終於恢復了更好的庫存。儘管如此，我們的部分業務仍然受到限制，我們認為這些限制不會在今年上半年解決。遊戲就是一個很好的例子。我們尚未將新一代遊戲機放入我們的商店。我們預計很快就會這樣做，但我們還沒有這樣做，因為沒有足夠的庫存來滿足需求。因此，除了大流行之外，這些事情很可能會受到限制，並且只會因為人們想要大幅改變他們的家庭體驗而變得更加嚴重。

Other categories like printing have been constrained since the start of pandemic and there's some challenges in that industry at large getting back into a better inventory position. I think in most some of the bigger categories around computing and home theater, we're going through some natural time transitions. This would be now our second home theater transition, as an example, during a pandemic. And I think our vendors are getting smarter about the timing of new model introductions and then what do they use for demand generation.

自疫情爆發以來，印刷等其他類別一直受到限制，整個產業在恢復更好的庫存狀況方面面臨一些挑戰。我認為在圍繞計算和家庭劇院的大多數較大類別中，我們正在經歷一些自然的時間過渡。舉例來說，這將是我們在大流行期間的第二次家庭劇院過渡。我認為我們的供應商在新車型推出的時機以及他們使用什麼來產生需求方面變得越來越聰明。

So I can't give you a good window as to what our inventory will look like 12 months from now. I feel we're going to be in better stock overall, but we'll still have a handful of constraints that we have to navigate through. I think the one thing our teams really do well, and I know that you know this, but we work so far upstream with all of our partners with collaborative forecasting, demand generation, even feature sets on models, which can actually help us give us -- help give our vendors the best forecast possible. So I always look at our forecast accuracy and our percent to fill, and I feel really good about what I can see going forward. And then the rest is based on consumer demand. And I think Matt talked about there are some things on the back half of this year that we have to plan for 2 different vectors on, and I know our teams will be ready.

因此，我無法向您提供一個關於 12 個月後我們的庫存狀況的良好窗口。我覺得我們的庫存總體上會更好，但我們仍然面臨一些必須克服的限制。我認為我們團隊確實做得很好的一件事，我知道你知道這一點，但到目前為止，我們與所有合作夥伴在上游合作，進行協作預測、需求生成，甚至模型的功能集，這實際上可以幫助我們為我們提供幫助——幫助我們的供應商做出盡可能最好的預測。因此，我總是關注我們的預測準確性和填充百分比，我對未來的前景感到非常滿意。然後剩下的就看消費者的需求了。我認為馬特談到了今年下半年的一些事情，我們必須為 2 個不同的向量做好計劃，我知道我們的團隊會做好準備。

Got it. And then if I get a follow-up on a separate topic. With regard to digital and the stores and fulfillment, like I guess when you were talking about retraining, reskilling, is that related to having to teach the employees to do a better job of fulfilling orders and shipping and doing things beyond servicing the electronics support when people come in, like is it more about the digital support than the in-person support?

知道了。然後如果我得到一個單獨主題的後續跟進。關於數位化、商店和履行，就像我想當你談論再培訓、再培訓時，這與必須教導員工更好地履行訂單、運輸以及做電子支援服務之外的事情有關。是否更多的是數位支援而不是面對面的支持？

Thanks for that question, Joe. It's a little bit about everything you just mentioned, in fact. And so in other words, there are multiple ways in which employees can, in many cases, opt in to gaining further certifications and skills. Sometimes that looks like within the 4 walls of the store, I might opt in to garnering more skills in home theater and computing. I might opt in to garnering more skills around services, therefore, I am more flexible throughout the store. In some cases, that might also mean I am willing to spend some of my time doing fulfillment work, fulfilling on car side -- curbside, excuse me, orders or packing inventory in the back out of some of those ship-from-store locations. So I may add those skills, which might add more hours and more flexibility.

謝謝你提出這個問題，喬。事實上，這與你剛才提到的一切都有一點關係。換句話說，在許多情況下，員工可以透過多種方式選擇獲得進一步的認證和技能。有時，看起來就像在商店的 4 堵牆內，我可能會選擇獲得更多家庭劇院和計算方面的技能。我可能會選擇在服務方面獲得更多技能，因此，我在整個商店中更加靈活。在某些情況下，這也可能意味著我願意花一些時間進行履行工作，在汽車方面履行 - 路邊，對不起，訂單或在某些從商店發貨地點的後麵包裝庫存。所以我可能會添加這些技能，這可能會增加更多的時間和更大的靈活性。

And then there are some new digital experiences that we are leveraging our associates for. I might opt in to being able to answer calls from a national call queue. While I'm on my shift, it's not that busy, and I can pick up a customer's question via call, or I might opt in to being more of an expert that's virtual that can help you with whatever your question is in a virtual connection through our app. All of those are different ways in which we're reskilling. And then you can imagine, on top of that, there might flexibility to go work in a supply chain location, or there might be flexibility to train myself into more of a technology job and be able to do that remotely.

然後，我們正在利用我們的員工來提供一些新的數位體驗。我可能會選擇能夠接聽國內呼叫隊列中的通話。當我輪班時，工作並不那麼忙，我可以透過電話解答客戶的問題，或者我可能會選擇成為虛擬專家，可以透過虛擬連線幫助您解決任何問題透過我們的應用程式。所有這些都是我們重新培養技能的不同方式。然後你可以想像，除此之外，可能有在供應鏈地點工作的靈活性，或者可能有靈活性來培訓自己更多地從事技術工作並能夠遠端完成這項工作。

And so in all of those different vectors, we are actually starting to create training modules and create opportunities for our employees not just for us to use them flexibly but for them to flexibly opt in to different roles and different hours in a way that might meet their lives with a little bit more flexibility and progress their careers, frankly.

因此，在所有這些不同的方面，我們實際上開始創建培訓模組並為我們的員工創造機會，不僅讓我們靈活使用它們，而且讓他們以可能滿足的方式靈活選擇不同的角色和不同的時間。地說，他們的生活更加靈活，並且職業生涯也取得了進步。

And we can now take our next question from Karen Short from Barclays.

現在我們可以回答巴克萊銀行凱倫·肖特提出的下一個問題。

I actually just wanted to talk a little bit about fiscal '22 in terms of operating margins with respect to that 5% target. So when I look at the ranges that you provided, I kind of back into a range of EBIT margin of 4.2% to 4.7%. And so I guess, in the context of that 5% target remaining intact, that does seem like a fairly, at least, on the low end, big leap to make to get back to the 5% target. So wondering if you could comment a little bit on that, and correct me if I'm wrong in terms of the math on that range. And then I have a follow-up.

事實上，我只是想談談 22 財年關於 5% 目標的營業利益率。因此，當我查看您提供的範圍時，我又回到了 4.2% 至 4.7% 的息稅前利潤率範圍。因此，我認為，在 5% 的目標保持不變的情況下，至少在低端，這似乎是一個相當大的飛躍，要回到 5% 的目標。所以想知道您是否可以對此發表一點評論，如果我在該範圍的數學方面有誤，請糾正我。然後我有一個後續行動。

Sure. I think, for the full year, if we think about the top -- if we use the top end of the range, 0 comp, we're likely -- our math would indicate a range that's a little bit higher than that, above 5%. That's assuming a 3-percent-ish sales -- our SG&A increase and a slight moderation or decline in operating or gross profit rate. So the top end of the range should imply something that's a little north of 5%.

當然。我認為，對於全年，如果我們考慮頂部 - 如果我們使用範圍的頂端，0 comp，我們很可能 - 我們的數學將表明一個範圍比上面的稍高一點5%。這是假設銷售額成長 3% 左右——我們的 SG&A 增加，且營業利潤率或毛利率略有放緩或下降。因此，該範圍的上限應該意味著略高於 5%。

Now certainly, as you start to slip towards the bottom of that range, we'll look at decisions that we need to make -- to see if -- where we want to end the year from an operating rate perspective. We do believe we're in a very strong position financially, and we probably would resist making short-term decisions to overly manufacture a rate when we know we need to invest for our future. So -- but the top end of our guidance should imply something north of 5%.

現在當然，當你開始滑向該範圍的底部時，我們將考慮我們需要做出的決定 - 看看我們是否希望從開工率的角度結束今年。我們確實相信我們在財務上處於非常有利的地位，當我們知道我們需要為未來進行投資時，我們可能會抵抗做出過度製造利率的短期決定。所以——但我們指導的上限應該意味著 5% 以上。

Okay. And then wondering, just generally speaking, I know you gave a lot of details on the number of employees. Could you maybe just talk a little bit about what you think the optimal full-time versus part-time mix was? And as you said, obviously, you skewed -- or you had, I think, a higher percent of full time but not by much. So wondering how you're thinking about that optimal mix with the 102,000 in mind.

好的。然後想知道，一般來說，我知道您提供了很多有關員工人數的詳細資訊。您能否簡單談談您認為最佳的全職與兼職組合是什麼？正如你所說，顯然，你有偏差——或者我認為你的全職時間比例較高，但幅度不大。所以想知道您是如何考慮 102,000 人的最佳組合的。

Yes. It's a little hard for me to say what's optimal when we're still striking the balance between learning about what we think our operating model is for the future and where we are today. And so I don't -- I would hesitate to comment on what we think the optimal mix is. I think what's important for us right now is we are trying to build in flexibility that will allow us to meet the customer wherever they're deciding to interact with us across those channels. And we're worrying a little less about exactly what the optimal mix is and instead really trying to figure out how best can we use that employee hour space across all the things that we need to do and, therefore, staff appropriately against that.

是的。當我們仍在了解我們認為未來的營運模式與我們今天的狀況之間取得平衡時，我有點難以說出什麼是最佳的。所以我不會——我會猶豫是否要評論我們認為的最佳組合。我認為現在對我們來說重要的是我們正在努力建立靈活性，這將使我們能夠滿足客戶，無論他們決定透過這些管道與我們互動。我們不太擔心最佳組合到底是什麼，而是真正嘗試找出如何最好地利用員工時間空間來完成我們需要做的所有事情，因此，員工適當地反對這一點。

So optimal, I don't think we know yet, given that we're still in the midst of a pandemic. And we still have a lot of unknowns in front of us, but we do feel pretty strongly that we are now set up in a better position to be able to flex with the changing customer dynamic.

如此理想，我認為我們還不知道，因為我們仍處於大流行之中。我們面前仍然有很多未知因素，但我們確實強烈地感覺到，我們現在處於更好的位置，能夠適應不斷變化的客戶動態。

And with that, I think that was our last question. I want to thank everyone for joining us today, and we look forward to updating you as we continue to progress against our strategies. Have a great day.

至此，我認為這是我們的最後一個問題。我要感謝大家今天加入我們，我們期待在我們繼續推進我們的策略的過程中向您通報最新情況。祝你有美好的一天。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

女士們、先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連線。