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 repairs under the arrangement are backed by Apple.
The relationship between the two companies goes back more than a decade, when the Richfield-based retailer 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 Apple's 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.
Bunch said Apple looks for ways to "reliably expand" its trained technicians and partnering with Best Buy was a good way to do that.
Paul Roberts, founder of pro right-to-repair organization Securepairs.org, told Fortune that while Apple's new partnership means it is listening to critics and makes repairs more accessible, it still does not address a key concern.
