With such great performance, one would have expected the company to be gung-ho about its guidance. However, Best Buy’s CEO, Hubert Joly is cautious. In a phone call with CNBC’s Courtney Reagan discussed the difficulty in predicting holiday seasons’ sale.

“We are excited about many categories and improved shipping for the holidays. Holiday season is hard to forecast. It’s a very competitive environment, a lot of mass merchants have promotions on consumer electronics, a category that has been volatile,” Reagan quoted Joly as saying.

On phone sales, Joly told Reagan “There are puts and takes. We are delighted to have innovation in the phone category […] availability of phones is spotty and uneven and fluctuates, so from an investors standpoint we have to be measured [in forecasts].”

Reagan highlighted that although strong third quarter sales is a great thing for Best Buy, a disruption at West coast ports can cause trouble for the company. Jolly told Reagan that replenishments can be a cause of concern, “we brought some inventory [forward] and because we had a stronger quarter we sold some of that merchandise, our inventory was lower than what we told investors it would be.”