Oct. 26--RadioShack Corp.'s third-quarter profit fell 24 percent as it sold fewer television converter boxes, laptops and GPS products, but said business started to pick up in September.

Strength was in mobility products, such as netbooks, and from "an economy showing some signs of potential stabilization," said Jim Gooch, chief financial officer.

Sprint Nextel postpaid wireless business increased and so did prepaid wireless handsets and airtime, the company said.

RadioShack faces more wireless competition from Wal-Mart Stors Inc. which this month started selling its Straight Talk, no-contract, pre-paid cellular service nationwide. Also, Best Buy is expanding its Best Buy Mobile stores to more markets and in some of the same malls where RadioShack operates.

During the quarter, RadioShack also added T-Mobile to its wireless lineup that includes AT&T and Sprint and added Verizon in its Sam's Club kiosks.

The Fort Worth-based consumer electronics chain reported third-quarter net income of $37.4 million, or 30 cents a share, in the period ended Sept. 30, compared with net income of $49.1 million, or 38 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.

Third-quarter same-store sales fell 2.9 percent from a year ago as sales of batteries and wireless accessories were also weak Total revenue fell 3.1 percent to $990.0 million compared with $1.02 billion last year, as sales from its 1,300 dealer stores fell by 15.7 percent and online sales fell 5.1 percent from last year.

In addition to those franchise stores, RadioShack operates 4,470 company-operated stores, 450 wireless phone kiosks and about 200 stores in Mexico.

Analysts expected RadioShack to earn 31 cents a share on revenue of $961 million.

Chairman and chief executive officer Julian C. Day called the company's launch of the "Shack" branding a success, and said plans are to "continue to refine and invest in this positioning."

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