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RadioShack history
RadioShack company history timeline
The company, founded in 1921, sold radio parts and surplus supplies by outlet and catalog.
Beginning in 1921, RadioShack would grow to a handful of stores clustered in the Northeast, and become a leading electronics mail-order distributor to hobbyists.
RadioShack issued its first catalogue in 1939, and even extended into the high fidelity music market by producing its own private label products with the brand name Realist.
The company issued its first catalog in 1939 as it entered the high fidelity music market.
Tandy Leather Company Formed Charles Tandy returned to Fort Worth in 1947 a driven and demanding man with big dreams.
In 1947, the company entered the growing high-fidelity market and opened the nation's first audio showroom that provided comparisons of speakers, amplifiers, turntables and phonograph cartridges.
The disagreement ended in a split in 1950 when Charles and his father formed Tandy Leather Company, while Hinckley kept the shoe business.
Tandy Corporation Listed on the New York Stock Exchange By 1954, Charles' enthusiasm for providing the leather parts and tools to make wallets and other items had grown the Tandy Leather Company to 67 stores in 36 states and Hawaii, with sales of $8 million.
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.
He prevailed four years later and was elected Chairman of the Board in November 1959.
1960: Tandy Corporation is established and begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
At the time of the Tandy Radio Shack & Leather 1962 acquisition, the Radio Shack chain was nearly bankrupt.
In 1970, Tandy Corporation bought Allied Radio Corporation (both retail and industrial divisions), merging the brands into Allied Radio Shack and closing duplicate locations.
Originally released in 5 colors, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, avocado and plum from the 1972 catalog.
After a 1973 federal government review, the company sold off the few remaining Allied retail stores and resumed using the Radio Shack name.
In 1975, Tandy Corporation became exclusively an electronics company after it spun off all other operations into Tandycrafts and Tandy Brands.
Two years later, in 1975, Roach became vice-president of manufacturing.
1977: Company begins selling personal computers.
More than 100,000 sold the first year; Tandy died suddenly in 1978.
It sold really well and they would sell more than 100k of them before 1980.
Allied Electronics, the firm's industrial component operation, continued as a Tandy division until it was sold to Spartan Manufacturing in 1981.
When North retired in July 1982, Roach became chairman as well.
In 1982, the breakup of the Bell System encouraged subscribers to own their own telephones instead of renting them from local phone companies; Radio Shack offered twenty models of home phones.
By 1984, RadioShack's impressive 19 percent market share had plummeted to under nine percent.
In 1984, the company introduced two new computers that were fully IBM-compatible and exchanged the TRS label for Tandy.
1985: Scott-McDuff and Video Concepts are acquired.
In 1986, the company spun off its foreign retail operations into InterTAN, Inc.
They bought Grid Systems Corporation to bring laptops to the masses in 1988.
In 1988, Tandy test-marketed its 100SX computer line through 50 Wal-Mart stores.
In 1989, Tandy posted record earnings.
In 1992, Tandy attempted to launch big-box electronics retailer Incredible Universe; most of the seventeen stores never turned a profit.
RadioShack phased out its computer business in 1993 along with its circuit board business.
In 1993, it restructured its entire operations to focus on retailing and, in a bold move, sold most of its manufacturing operations.
1993: Company sells most of its manufacturing operations.
Computer City, which posted over $600 million in annual sales in its second year of operation, announced plans to open 20 new stores by the end of 1994.
In 1994, RadioShack began selling IBM's Aptiva line of home computers.
1995: Video Concepts is closed down.
Its six profitable stores were sold to Fry's Electronics in 1996; the others were closed.
Tandy closed the McDuff stores and abandoned Incredible Universe in 1996, but continued to add new RadioShack stores.
The increasing influence of Roberts was shown by his promotion to president of Tandy Corporation in March 1997.
The company completed a further retrenching move in mid-1997 when it sold a 20 percent stake in Computer City to a group of computer retailing executives, who took charge of running the chain.
1997: McDuff's and Incredible Universe chains are shuttered; RadioShack forms alliance with Sprint.
In 1998, RadioShack called itself the single largest seller of consumer telecommunications products in the world; its stock reached its peak a year later.
The newly streamlined and focused Tandy Corporation posted its best results in years in 1999--net income of $297.9 million on sales of $4.13 billion.
In May 2000, the company dropped the Tandy name altogether, becoming RadioShack Corporation.
The leather operating assets were sold to The Leather Factory on November 30, 2000; that business remains profitable.
Incredible Universe became a separate division and plans were announced to open 50 units by 2000.
They made it from the 70s, up until 2001 when they began their decline.
The last annual RadioShack printed catalogs were distributed to the public in 2003.
The company started a high pressure plan and started hammering on the managers at the stores, constantly pushing them and by 2004 they rebelled with thousands of managers filing a class action suit.
By 2004 sales were down.
Until 2004, RadioShack routinely asked for the name and address of purchasers so they could be added to mailing lists.
InterTAN was sold (with its Canadian stores) to rival Circuit City in 2004.
In 2005, RadioShack parted with Verizon for a 10-year agreement with Cingular (later AT&T) and renegotiated its 11-year agreement with Sprint.
By the first quarter of 2005, the metrics of skill assessment used during Fix 1500 had already been discarded, and the corporate officer who created the program had resigned.
She left the company in August 2006, later becoming CEO and Executive Vice President of Toys "R" Us.
Most of the stores closed in 2006 brought in less than US$350,000 in revenue each year.
In the spring of 2006, RadioShack announced a strategy to increase average unit volume, lower overhead costs, and grow profitable square footage.
In 2008, RadioShack assigned this lease to the Tarrant County College District (TCC), remaining in 400,000 square feet of the space as its headquarters.
In August 2009, RadioShack rebranded itself as "The Shack". The campaign increased sales of mobile products, but at the expense of its core components business.
While some PointMobl products, such as car power adapters and phone cases, were carried as store-brand products in RadioShack stores, the stand-alone PointMobl stores were closed and the concept abandoned in March 2011.
By 2011, smartphone sales, rather than general electronics, accounted for half of the chain's revenue.
In September 2012, RadioShack's head office laid off 130 workers after a US$21 million quarterly loss.
Despite the debt restructuring proposal, in December Salus and Cerberus informed RadioShack that it was in default of the US$250,000,000 they had provided as a cash infusion in 2013.
The company had received a US$250,000,000 cash infusion in 2013 from Salus Capital Partners and Cerberus Capital Management.
On July 28, 2014, Mergermarket's Debtwire reported RadioShack was discussing Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as an option.
A creditor group alleged the chain had remained on life support instead of shutting down earlier and cutting its losses merely so that Standard General could avoid paying on credit default swaps which expired on December 20, 2014.
Many stores had already closed abruptly on Sunday, February 1, 2015, the first day of the company's fiscal year, with employees only given a few hours advance notice.
Re-branded stores soft launched on April 10, 2015, with a preliminary conversion of the stores' existing wireless departments to exclusively house Sprint brands, with all stores eventually to be renovated in waves to allocate larger spaces for Sprint.
In the ‘90s, RadioShack once again attempted to change, this time having to restructure over 200 store locations. It continued to do so into 2015 by selling things like cell phones.
RadioShack dealerships had re-opened around 500 stores by October 2018.
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RadioShack competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kmart | 1899 | $25.1B | 1,500 | - |
| Payless ShoeSource | 1956 | $3.0B | 18,000 | - |
| Bath & Body Works | 1990 | $7.3B | 336 | 1,971 |
| Charlotte Russe | 1975 | $42.0M | 6,500 | - |
| Aeropostale | 1987 | $1.8B | 21,007 | 706 |
| American Eagle Outfitters | 1977 | $5.3B | 37,000 | 1,172 |
| The Children's Place | 1969 | $1.6B | 2,100 | 436 |
| Victoria's Secret | 1977 | $6.2B | 97,000 | 980 |
| Forever 21 | 1984 | $4.0B | 30,000 | 32 |
| Claire's | 2007 | $1.4B | 18,100 | 382 |
RadioShack history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of RadioShack, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about RadioShack. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at RadioShack. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by RadioShack. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of RadioShack and its employees or that of Zippia.
RadioShack may also be known as or be related to Hart Distributing, Inc., RADIOSHACK CORP, Radio Shack Corporation (1921–1963) Tandy Corporation (1963–2000) RadioShack Corporation (2000–2015) General Wireless Operations Inc. (2015–2020) and RadioShack.