After announcing the tie up and brand to much fanfare 2 years ago, Radio Shack has announced the shutdown of its Radio Shack Wireless in-house MVNO, which was powered by Cricket’s former CDMA network. The shutdown is ongoing with the new AT&T-powered Cricket Wireless and Radio Shack offering affected customers options to retain service with Cricket, such as credits towards new phones or complete refunds from Radio Shack. A statement Radio Shack follows below:
“We continually refine and evaluate our product mix and make changes to our offerings to better align with customer demands,” in a statement to FierceWireless. “As part of these on-going evaluations, we will no longer offer the RadioShack No Contract devices. Customers who purchased the service will be able to continue using the current devices and RadioShack will honor the 30-day return policy in store.”
RadioShack No Contract Wireless launched in 2012 with feature phones and smartphones while offering service plans ranging from $25 a month for 300 voice minutes with unlimited messaging and Web access to $60 per month for unlimited voice, text messaging, bundled Muve Music access and 2.5 GB of data before throttling. While the offering was branded under RadioShack and sold through the company’s sales channels, the former Leap Wireless provided the service as well as the billing for customer management, with Radio Shack only handling sales and marketing.
Moreover, because of the limited footprint of the Cricket network, many RadioShack locations in major markets could not offer RadioShack Wireless service, severely hampering sales volume. This latest move is the latest in a long tenure of struggle for the beleaguered retailer, which has seen its fortunes continually suffer over the years with the lack of a coherent corporate direction and becoming overly reliant on wireless service sales for the majority of its sales volume and revenue.
