for a radio communications room see radio shack . radioshack formerly called radioshack corporation tandy corporation type private industry retail predecessor hinckley tandy leather company founded 1921 ; 95 years ago 1921 boston massachusetts u.s. founders theodore and milton deutschmann headquarters fort worth texas u.s. number of locations 1 743 2015 area served united states mexico key people dene rogers ceo 1 2 products consumer electronics revenue us 4 billion 2016 2 owner standard general number of employees 4 472 2016 2 parent general wireless 2015 present website www.radioshack.com the exterior of a typical free standing radioshack store in texarkana texas . the exterior of a radioshack store in a shopping mall in puerto vallarta mexico . radioshack is the brand name of an american chain of wireless and electronics stores originally founded in 1921 and today owned by the standard general affiliate general wireless . it is partnered with sprint and most stores are branded as sprint though also selling radioshack brand items . at its peak in 1999 it operated stores in the united states mexico united kingdom australia and canada . on february 5 2015 the company filed for chapter 11 protection under united states bankruptcy law after 11 consecutive quarterly losses . 3 4 by then it was operating only in the united states and mexico . on march 31 2015 the united states bankruptcy court for the northern district of texas approved a 160 million offer by general wireless which gained ownership of the radioshack brand and its 1 743 locations and immediately leased them to sprint . contents 1 history 1.1 the first 40 years 1.2 tandy corporation 1.3 battery of the month 1.4 allied radio 1.5 expansion 1.6 flavoradio 1.7 cb radio 1.8 computers 1.9 radioshack corporation 1.10 pointmobl and the shack 1.11 2015 re branding 2 financial decline 2.1 2004 fix 1500 initiative 2.2 2006 management issues 2.3 2006 corporate layoffs and new strategy 2.4 2009 customer relations problems 2.5 2012 2014 financial distress 2.6 2015 bankruptcy and sale to standard general 3 corporate headquarters 4 international operations 4.1 australia 4.2 belgium 4.3 canada 4.4 china 4.5 france 4.6 malaysia 4.7 mexico 4.8 uk 5 other operations 5.1 corporate citizenship 5.2 other retailer partnerships 5.2.1 no contract wireless 5.3 cycling team sponsorship 6 lawsuits and litigation 7 in popular culture 8 references 9 further reading 10 external links history edit the first 40 years edit 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 . the brothers opened a one store retail and mail order operation in the heart of downtown boston at 46 brattle street . they chose the name radio shack which was the term for a small wooden structure that housed a ship s radio equipment . the deutschmanns thought the name was appropriate for a store that would supply the needs of radio officers aboard ships as well as hams amateur radio operators . the term was already in use and is to this day by hams when referring to the location of their stations . 5 the company issued its first catalog in 1939 6 as it entered the high fidelity music market . in 1954 radio shack began selling its own private label products under the brand name realist changing the brand name to realistic after being sued by stereo realist . after expanding to nine stores plus an extensive mail order business 7 the company fell on hard times in the 1960s . radio shack was essentially bankrupt but charles d. tandy saw the potential of radio shack and retail consumer electronics and bought the company for 300 000 . 8 tandy corporation edit main article tandy corporation former radioshack logo 1974 1995 the tandy corporation a leather goods corporation was looking for other hobbyist related businesses into which it could expand . at the time of the tandy radio shack & leather 1962 acquisition the radio shack chain was nearly bankrupt ; it sold 14 million worth of am and fm radios ham radio gear walkie talkies speakers and antennas annually but was spending more money than it was taking in . tandy closed radio shack s unprofitable mail order business ended credit purchases and eliminated many top management positions keeping the salespeople merchandisers and advertisers . the number of items carried was cut from 40 000 to 2 500 as tandy sought to identify the 20 % that represents 80 % of the sales and replace radio shack s handful of large stores with many little holes in the wall large numbers of rented locations which were easier to close and re open elsewhere if one location didn t work out . private label brands from lower cost manufacturers displaced name brands to raise radio shack profit margins ; 9 non electronic lines from go carts to musical instruments were abandoned entirely . 10 customer data from the former radio shack mail order business determined where tandy would locate new stores . as an incentive for them to work long hours and remain profitable store managers were required to take an ownership stake in their stores . 10 in markets too small to support a company owned radio shack store the chain relied on independent dealers who carried the products as a sideline . 11 charles d. tandy who had guided the firm through a period of growth in the 1960s and 1970s died of a heart attack at age 60 in november 1978 . in 1982 the breakup of the bell system encouraged subscribers to own their own telephone extensions instead of renting them from local phone companies ; radio shack offered twenty models of home phone . 12 in 1992 tandy attempted to launch big box electronics retailer incredible universe ; 13 most of the seventeen stores never turned a profit . its six profitable stores were sold to fry s electronics in 1996 ; the others were closed . 14 other rebranding attempts included the launch or acquisition of chains including mcduff video concepts and the edge in electronics ; 13 these were larger stores which carried tvs appliances and other lines . 15 tandy closed the mcduff stores and abandoned incredible universe in 1996 but continued to add new radioshack stores . 16 by 1996 industrial parts suppliers were deploying e commerce to sell a wide range of components online ; 17 it would be another decade before radioshack would sell parts from its website 18 with a selection so limited that it was no rival to established industrial vendors with million item specialised centralised inventories . in 1994 the company introduced a service known as the repair shop at radio shack through which it provided inexpensive out of warranty repairs for more than 45 different brands of electronic equipment . 19 the company already had over one million parts in its extensive parts warehouses and 128 service centres throughout the us and canada ; 20 it hoped to leverage these to build customer relationships and increase store traffic . len roberts president of the radio shack division since 1993 estimated that the new repair business could generate 500 million per year by 1999 . 21 america s technology store was abandoned for the you ve got questions we ve got answers slogan in 1994 . 22 in early summer 1995 the company launched a new logo ; radio shack was spelled in camelcase as radioshack . in 1996 radioshack successfully petitioned the us federal communications commission to allocate frequencies for the family radio service a short range walkie talkie system which proved popular . 23 battery of the month edit from the 1960s until the early 1990s radio shack promoted a battery of the month club ; a free wallet sized cardboard card offered one free enercell a month in store . 24 like the free tube testing offered in store in the early 1970s 25 this small loss leader drew foot traffic . the cards also served as generic business cards for the salespeople . allied radio edit in 1970 tandy corporation bought allied radio both retail and industrial divisions merging the brands into allied radio shack and closing duplicate locations . after a 1973 federal government review the company sold off the few remaining allied retail stores and resumed using the radio shack name . allied electronics the firm s industrial component operation continued as a tandy division until it was sold to spartan manufacturing in 1981 . 26 expansion edit in the 1970s the chain expanded into the uk under the tandy name ; tandy entered the australian market in 1973 . the international expansion operated through a subsidiary spun off as intertan in june 1986 27 which operated tandy or radio shack stores until 1999 uk 2001 australia and 2004 canada . flavoradio edit the longest running product for radio shack was the realistic flavoradio sold from 1972 to 1986 15 years in the same design . this also made the flavoradio the longest run in radio history . originally released in 6 colors or flavors strawberry orange lemon avocado blueberry and grape the line grew to eleven flavors . they were made in korea hong kong and the phillipines . when the flavoradio name was dropped in 2001 it was the last am only radio on the market . 28 cb radio edit the chain profited from the mass popularity of citizens band radio in the mid 1970s which at its peak represented nearly 30 % of the chain s revenue . 29 computers edit in 1977 two years after the mits altair 8800 radio shack introduced the trs 80 one of the first mass produced personal computers . 30 a complete pre assembled system at a time when many microcomputers were built from kits backed by a nationwide retail chain when computer stores were in their infancy sales of the initial primitive 600 trs 80 exceeded all expectations despite its limited capabilities . 31 this was followed by the trs 80 color computer in 1980 designed to attach to a television . tandy also inspired the tandy computer whiz kids 1982 1991 a comic book duo of teen calculator enthusiasts who teamed up with the likes of archie and superman . 32 radio shack s computer stores offered lessons to pre teens as radio shack computer camp in the early 1980s . 33 in the mid 1980s radio shack began a transition from its proprietary 8 bit computers to its proprietary ibm pc compatible tandy computers removing the radio shack name from the product in an attempt to shake off the long running nicknames radio scrap 34 and trash 80 35 to make the product appeal to business users . poor compatibility shrinking margins and a lack of economies of scale led radio shack to exit the computer manufacturing market in the 1990s after losing much of the desktop pc market to newer price competitive rivals like dell . 13 tandy acquired the computer city chain in 1991 and sold the stores to compusa in 1998 . much of the radio shack line was manufactured in the company s own factories . by 1990 1991 tandy was the world s biggest manufacturer of personal computers as its oem manufacturing capacity was building hardware for digital equipment corporation grid olivetti ast computer panasonic and others . the company manufactured everything from store fixtures to computer software to wire and cable tv antennas audio and video tape . 36 at one point radio shack was the world s largest electronics chain . 37 in june 1991 tandy closed or restructured its 200 radio shack computer centers 38 acquired computer city and attempted to shift its emphasis away from components and cables toward mainstream consumer electronics . 39 tandy sold its computer manufacturing to ast research in 1993 40 including the laptop computer