Apple Watch to be sold at Best Buy stores from August

REUTERS - The Apple Watch will be available at stores of Best Buy Co Inc, the largest U.S. consumer electronics chain, starting Aug. 7.

The Apple Watch and Apple Watch Sport models will be sold at more than 300 Best Buy stores in time for the holiday shopping season, a spokeswoman for Apple Inc said.

"Customers love Apple Watch, and we are thrilled to begin offering it at Best Buy," she said in an email.

Best Buy is the first retailer to sell the watch outside of the Apple retail store.

"The Apple Watch is an important addition to an emerging product category, and we know our customers want it," Jason Bonfig, senior category officer, said on the Best Buy website.

The company said the product will also be available on its online store BestBuy.com.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that the Apple watch was coming to Best Buy.

Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri told Reuters earlier this month that sales of the Apple Watch had beat the company's expectations. He said in the nine weeks since its launch in late April, the device had sold better than either iPhones or iPads over a similar period after their launch.

(Reporting by Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)