Sonos CEO says Amazon, Google aren’t ‘doing anything interesting’ in audio

During Sonos’ Q1 2023 net call, CEO Patrick Spence expressed nan accustomed optimism astir his company’s financial performance, income momentum, and upcoming merchandise roadmap. This man really loves nan connection “flywheel,” folks. But he besides took clear jabs astatine Big Tech competitors, including Amazon, Google, and Apple, for hardly putting up a conflict successful caller months.

With Amazon rumored to beryllium taking a difficult look astatine its ambitions surrounding Alexa and Echo products and Google mostly focused connected all things Pixel, Spence said that Sonos faced nary superior title during nan important vacation quarter. “We’ve gone done fiscal Q1, which is nan tallness of nan user electronics and audio play and, you know, it was... we’ve seen immoderate of nan accepted players spell dense discounting and, benignant of for illustration a accepted playbook for C.E. that, you know, we’ve ever fought against and don’t really judge in,” he said. “And then, you know, nan large tech players, we conscionable haven’t seen them progressive and we haven’t seen them, you know, doing thing interesting.”

“The large tech players, we conscionable haven’t seen them active.”

Neither of Sonos’ superior smart speaker rivals launched immoderate caller audio hardware during nan vacation quarter. And Apple’s second-generation HomePod arrived aft it had already ended. But Sonos doesn’t look each that impressed pinch aliases concerned astir Apple’s resurrected $299 device. “We ne'er want to get overconfident successful these things, but you know, moreover seeing what’s emerged, you know, recently, from Apple, I could not beryllium much excited aliases assured astir nan merchandise roadmap we person and our expertise to return much and much of that $96 cardinal [global audio market],” Spence said.

Google’s astir caller location audio merchandise is the aging Nest Audio, and Amazon’s autumn 2022 hardware event went ray connected smart speakers: nan institution introduced a refreshed Echo Dot and added a caller achromatic colour action for nan top-of-the-line Echo Studio. The regular Echo speaker was last refreshed successful 2020.

“I conscionable consciousness for illustration there’s others that are astir apt questioning their investments successful this area, and we are investing successful 4 caller categories. We are going to raise nan barroom successful our existing categories. I mean, we’ve sewage a batch going on,” Spence added.

Sonos has said it will merchandise a merchandise successful nan first of those caller categories sometime successful 2023. In nan nearer term, Sonos will beryllium revitalizing its high-end location audio lineup pinch caller speakers, including nan Era 300 and Era 100. Both are designed to showcase spatial audio and Dolby Atmos. A second-generation Sonos Move portable speaker is besides nether development, The Verge has learned.

Do you cognize much astir upcoming audio products from Sonos, Amazon, aliases Google? I’ve revealed aggregate Sonos products earlier their charismatic announcement. These see the Roam, Ray, Sonos Voice Control, Sub Mini, and astir recently, the upcoming Optimo speakers.

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Discounts connected Sonos products complete nan holidays helped nan institution present beardown net and hit Wall Street expectations for nan Q1 fiscal quarter. This was nan first clip that Sonos had been capable to connection those promotions successful 3 years; nan multi-room audio leader struggled to support its speakers and soundbars successful banal during nan covid pandemic, facing nan aforesaid proviso concatenation woes that reverberated crossed nan tech industry.

But nan deals were backmost this clip — moreover if immoderate of them conscionable returned Sonos products to their erstwhile pricing. Either way, nan institution put greater accent connected bundles that boost its percent of multi-product customer households. The mean number of products for each Sonos family is presently 2.98. Sonos sees a $5 cardinal gross opportunity if it tin successfully person single-product customers to nan multi-device lifestyle.