Fort Worth, Texas – Buoyed by a brisk business in wireless communications, RadioShack bucked industry sales trends by posting a robust 8 percent sales gain in June.
Total revenue reached $356.6 million for the month, while comparable store sales were up a solid 4 percent.
‘Our performance was driven by our communications business, specifically wireless,’ noted RadioShack chairman and CEO Len Roberts. ‘The strength of the wireless category supports our market leadership position and demonstrates that dynamic growth still remains in this industry sector.’
Year-to-date sales are up 5 percent for the nation’s fifth-ranked CE chain to $2.1 billion, while year-to-date same store sales rose 4 percent.
In other RadioShack news, the company has agreed to buy out Microsoft’s 25 percent interest in RadioShack.com for $88 million in cash, giving the retailer 100 percent ownership of its e-commerce subsidiary. Microsoft, which sells its MSN online services through RadioShack stores, invested in and reconstructed the retailer’s Web site in 1999. The partners will continue to work together on strategic MSN-related projects, the companies said.
Finally, RadioShack has taken an early – and reduced – payment on a CompUSA note that it issued for the purchase of Computer City in 1998. RadioShack received a $123.6 million discounted payment, plus accrued interest, settling the $136 million note receivable. The note, which would have matured in 2008, had semi-annual interest payments of 9.48 percent, with semi-annual principal payments slated to begin in December. RadioShack will take a one-time non-cash charge of $12.4 million pretax in the second quarter for the remaining value of the note.
‘This note payment allows RadioShack to reduce its exposure to the computer industry,’ explained senior VP and chief financial officer Michael Newman. ‘By removing this note from our balance sheet we can re-deploy the capital in our core businesses.’
