Strategy in TECH...
Parasound announced this week that it has hired well-regarded audio engineer Darren Myers to its team. An expansion of the company’s engineering group, it struck me immediately that with this announcement new owner David Sheriff was already delivering on his promise to expand the company’s product design and engineering team.
On Tuesday, Masimo Corporation (Masimo) (NASDAQ: MASI) announced the results for its fiscal 2022 fourth quarter and full-year periods. Calling 2022 a “momentous year” for the company, management noted strong revenue growth – mostly from its acquisition of Sound United – as well as several adjusted figures exceeding forecast.
RoseWater Energy Group said today that it is participating in multiple Energy Day education seminars being held by local sales representatives around the country. These events are being held in February and March and provide dealers with an informative half-day education session on the importance of power as the foundation for any home automation or smart home solution.
Moody’s Investors Service (Moody’s) announced recently that it has once again downgraded the overall credit rating of Guitar Center Inc. – the owner of custom integrator Audio Visual Design Group (AVDG). The agency has dropped its creditworthiness from B2 to B3. Not only that, Moody’s notes that it has additionally downgraded the company’s rating on a specific item – its senior secured note – to Caa1 from B3. The outlook for the near term is said to be “stable.”
This is yet a new chapter in a long-troubled private equity-owned company swimming in debt and trying to grow itself out of trouble.
Origin Acoustics announced this week that Jeff Coombs, founder of respected brands James Loudspeaker (now owned by Sonance) and Ambisonic Systems (now owned by Origin Acoustics) died on Monday, February 20, 2023. Coombs, age 69, passed away from cancer surrounded by his loving family.
Universal Electronics, Inc. (UEI), (NASDAQ: UEIC) released the results of their fiscal 2022 fourth quarter (Q4) and full year (FY) at the end of last week and their mixed performance was not well received by investors skittish over the economic outlook for 2023. Although gross margins improved slightly for the fourth quarter, for the full year gross margins declined, revenues were down, operating income declined, and the company saw its net income dramatically lowered.
UEI is one of the companies I watch as it can give a sense of the changing economic outlook for the overall consumer electronics market. And that fact makes this latest report a little troubling.
Russound released a statement today from CEO Charlie Porritt who summed up their experience at the recent ISE 2023 event in Barcelona. According to Porritt, the show was “one of the most productive, well-run, and enjoyable trade events to date.” It doesn’t get much better than that…
Parasound announced today that it has appointed Larry Bennett, a well-known audio industry veteran, as its Vice President of Sales and Marketing. The company says that this is the first step in new owner David Sheriff’s plan to revitalize the company.
CEDIA has launched a new workforce acquisition initiative called CEDIA NextGen: Smart Home Career Toolkit. Designed to provide integrators the tools they need to improve and expand their outreach to attract new candidates to the smart home industry, the association has created an impressive series of multimedia tools to grease the skids in getting new recruits through integrators’ doors.
After years of driving the economy, Big Tech has suddenly hit a rough road. By now you’ve likely heard about layoffs in tech…lots and lots of layoffs. According to Layoffs.fyi, as of this writing, more than 104,000 tech jobs have been lost in just the first six weeks of 2023. But what is behind the struggles of these Big Tech players?
