LeapFrog is a brand from Northern California, that deals with educational toy tablets and we’ve just learned that they’re selling the business to Hong Kong based rival VTech. The transaction will go down for $72 million and comes after a few years of dropping sales.
Apple seems to have been the main problem of the firm, or better said its iPads, although they compete in different price ranges. LeapFrog is now content with only making apps for the iPad. The company has experimented with a variety of formats and products (even gaming devices) and now it will be relegated to simply being a subsidiary of VTech.
LeapFrog was founded in 1995 and its first product was an electronic book device, that was meant to help children read. Then after the iPad came, they made the mini tablet LeapPad, sold for $100 in 2011. It was a limited device, without a browser and with very few games, but it was compact and rugged. Initially it was popular, but then the iPad Mini came, got cheaper and cheaper as time passed and LeapFrog couldn’t compete with that.
Hardware sales plateaued for the company in 2013 then dropped 40% in 2014. Vtech is the world’s largest maker of cordless cellphones and I’m sure they’ll put LeapFrog to good use.