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WowWee history
WowWee company history timeline
Initially from Canada, the two founding brothers (Richard and Peter Yanofsky) moved to Hong Kong to form the company in 1982, as an independent research & development and manufacturing outfit.
In 1987, the company changed focus, building and marketing toys under their own brand in response to a fall in OEM orders.
WowWee was founded in 1988 as an independent research and development and manufacturing company, focused on incorporating affordable, cutting-edge technologies into toys and other leisure-time products to provide enhanced entertainment value.
In 1998 the company was purchased by Hasbro.
In 1999, they produced new products including a robotic dog (MegaByte), T-Rex, and the Animaltronics and Dinotronics lines of remote control animals.
One of his first products with WowWee was the B.I.O. Bug, released in 2001.
While Tilden was developing Robosapien, Hasbro canceled the project several times, leading Yanofsky to negotiate out of the contract in 2003.
Robosapien was released in 2004, and over 1.5 million were reportedly sold in the first five months of sale.
In addition to selling over 6 million units, Robosapien also wins multiple awards including the Toy Industry’s 2005 TOTY.
© 2007 WowWee Group Limited.
The Dragonfly was named as one of the inventions of the year by Time in 2007.
"©2008 WowWee Group Limited.
At the 2008 CES, several new products (including the Rovio and Femisapien) were announced with their estimated release dates and prices.
In 2010, the management of WowWee entered into a support agreement with Optimal Group, and took the company private again.
In 2014, a new product, MiP, was released.
MiP earns top spot on Good Housekeeping’s Best Toys of 2015 list. “Our kid testers were wowed by this robot’s party tricks”.
For the 2017 Christmas season, it introduced, through a series of viral promotions on social media, a product called Fingerlings.
In 2018, WowWee followed up the success with large interactive plush Fingerlings in the Fingerlings Hugs series.
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of WowWee, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about WowWee. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at WowWee. 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 WowWee. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of WowWee and its employees or that of Zippia.
WowWee may also be known as or be related to WowWee, WowWee Group Limited and Wowwee.