Forty-five jobs have been lost at Sphero due to sales of its high tech toys failing to reach the company’s expectations during the run-up to Christmas.
Most of the jobs lost were based in Colorado according to TechCrunch, however, there were also redundancies in the UK and Hong Kong.
Sphero is known its remote control toys that are operated via the user’s smartphone or tablet computer.
Initially, Sphero launched with a spherical robot of the same name. In 2015, they launched a toy BB-8, a robot character from Star Wars films. Last year saw the introduction of more Star Wars robots and Lightning McQueen from Disney’s Cars film.
The company now wishes to concentrate on educational products which it sees as a lower risk than selling products based on famous film and comic characters. Such branded toys involve expensive licensing deals which mean manufacturers need to sell high volumes of product in order to see returns on their investment.
Informer: TechCrunch