Apple Inc. said Wednesday that it has expanded its authorized repair service network to include all of Best Buy’s 1,000 stores around the country.
Nearly 7,600 of Best Buy’s Geek Squad staff have been certified by Apple, which guarantees that all repairs on its products are done by trained technicians who will use Apple parts.
The arrangement brings additional visibility to Best Buy’s technical support services, a key growth strategy, while also helping drive traffic to its stores.
The relationship between the two companies goes back more than a decade, when Best Buy became the first third-party retailer to sell the Apple iPhone in September 2008. Best Buy now operates Apple “store-within-a-store” concepts in nearly all of its locations, in which it showcases Apple merchandise and assigns specially trained sales staff.
With Best Buy Co. Inc. in the mix, there are more than 1,800 Apple-authorized service providers in the United States in addition to its own retail stores. That’s triple the number three years ago, according to Apple.
“We’re always looking at how we can reliably expand our network of trained technicians and we’re excited to partner with every Best Buy store,” Tara Bunch, Apple’s vice president of AppleCare, said in a statement.
GM tries to avoid costly air bag recall
General Motors is trying to avoid recalling potentially deadly Takata air bag inflators in thousands of full-size pickup trucks and SUVs for the fourth straight year, leaving owners to wonder if vehicles are safe to drive.
The automaker petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to exempt it from recalls that were required under a 2015 agreement between Takata and the government.
Takata inflators can explode with too much force, blowing apart a metal canister and spewing shrapnel.
Twenty-four people have been killed and hundreds injured by the inflators worldwide.
For GM, the stakes are high. If NHTSA requires it to do all the recalls, the company will have to repair more than 6 million trucks and SUVs at a cost of $1.2 billion, more than half the profit reported by the company in its most recent quarter.
GM’s petition, posted Wednesday by the government, says the inflators are unique to GM and are safe, with no explosions even though nearly 67,000 air bags have deployed in the field.
Tough to follow European Central Bank’s president
Mario Draghi is credited with saving the euro through decisive action as president of the European Central Bank. Which makes it all the more important who succeeds him when his term ends Oct. 31.
European leaders are searching for a replacement for Draghi, but sharing the 71-year-old’s pragmatic and activist approach is not the only qualification. Instead, picking the ECB president is part of complex horse trading among governments.
“Draghi has steered the eurozone through a tremendously difficult time, through a much bigger storm than anyone could have imagined,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank in London. “He made sure that the ECB rose to the unforeseen challenge, in my view without breaking or violating the mandate, but under unforeseen circumstances he found new tools to help the ECB meet its mandate.”