The brothers opened a one-store retail and mail-order operation in the heart of downtown Boston at 46 Brattle Street. The company was started as Radio Shack in 1921 by two brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, who wanted to provide equipment for the then-nascent field of amateur, or ham radio.
1.3.6 2009: Customer relations problems. 1.3.5 2006: Corporate layoffs and new strategy. RadioShack operates primarily as an e-commerce website, a network of independently owned, franchised RadioShack stores, and a supplier of parts for HobbyTown USA. In November 2020, Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV), a holding company owned by Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr, acquired RadioShack. And subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy, claiming its Sprint partnership was not as profitable as expected, and announced plans to close most of their company-owned stores after Memorial Day Weekend in 2017, and to shift its business primarily to online. General Wireless IP Holdings LLC retained rights to the RadioShack brand in all remaining territories, which is mainly the United States because General Wireless IP Holdings never had the rights to the RadioShack brand in other parts of the world that were previously assigned to InterTAN in 1986, such as Australia until 2020 when it sold the branding rights to Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV). Egypt-based Delta RS for Trading owns the RadioShack brand within North Africa and the Middle East. El Salvador-based Unicomer Group owns the RadioShack brand within the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. Mexico-based Grupo Gigante, through its subsidiary RadioShack de México, owns the RadioShack brand within Mexico. Was formed to operate the RadioShack stores, and General Wireless IP Holdings LLC was formed to hold the intellectual property.ĭuring RadioShack Corporation's bankruptcy proceeding 2015, RadioShack Corporation sold the RadioShack brand rights to different entities around the world. In May 2015, General Wireless Inc., an affiliate of Standard General, bought the company's assets, including the RadioShack brand name and related intellectual property, for US$26.2 million. By then, it was operating only in the United States and Latin America. In February 2015, RadioShack Corporation filed for Chapter 11 protection under United States bankruptcy law after 11 consecutive quarterly losses. Outside of those territories, the company licensed other companies to use the RadioShack brand name in parts of Asia, North Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921.Īt its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Retail ECommerce Ventures (REV since Nov. General Wireless IP Holdings LLC (2015–2020)