Sprint officially announces plans to take over 1700 RadioShack stores in co-branding deal
It was only 3 days ago we’d heard RadioShack was doing so bad that they were looking to sell off a major fleet of retail stores to Sprint, and now that rumor has been confirmed. The electronics retailer officially filed bankruptcy this week to help stabilize a ship that was only centimeters away from hitting rock bottom.
Sprint will look to take on 1,750 of RadioShack’s most prime retail locations in a deal where the value wasn’t publicly disclosed. To put that into perspective, Sprint currently commands just 1,100 retail stores of their own, so they’ll be more than doubling their footprint in one fell swoop.
Good news for RadioShack fans is that those stores will be co-branded, so the name itself will live on. Sprint says they will occupy about 1/3 of each retail space, while the rest will remain classic RadioShack goodness. Think of it as a one-stop shop for everything mobile and electronics (except one big retailer in the United States already does that better than everyone else).
Sprint says their branding will take precedence over RadioShack’s, and we didn’t expect anything less considering they’re the ones forking over money to make this whole thing happen. All of it is subject to approval by a bankruptcy court, of course, but we have a hard time believing anyone will have reason to block this deal.
While an increased retail presence can’t hurt Sprint, they’ll have to do more than just spread their name and logo onto more buildings. The company seems to understand that with their latest moves, including a decent flow of value-added features, edgy marketing and a plan to continue improving subpar network performance.
Even with all that it’ll be tough to supplant Verizon and AT&T as the nation’s biggest and best carriers, but it should at least help them remain competitive and maintain a healthy balance of competition in a very fierce industry.
[via Sprint]