Strategy in TECH...
Absoulute Audio Plus Video has announced it will open a new walk-in dedicated showroom filled with a wide assortment of high-performance audio and home theater gear in Aiken, SC. Absoulute (yes, that spelling is intentional) is a multi-location full-service dealer of fine audio and home theater gear, which will host a grand opening of its new Aiken location September 19 & 20, 2025.
Enigmatic, mercurial CEO Elon Musk confirmed to Reuters news that Tesla has signed a deal with Samsung Electronics to manufacture and supply Tesla’s next-generation AI chips, the AI6. The contract is said to be valued at $16.5 billion.
Gentex Corporation (Nasdaq: GNTX) has reported its financial results for the second quarter of Fiscal 2025, the 90-day period that ended on June 30, 2025. For the most part, results looked better than initially expected, although much of the upside improvement in revenues was largely thanks to the acquisition of VOXX Int’l, the company that owns audio brands Onkyo, Integra, and Klipsch as well as other automotive electronics brands. That acquisition closed on April 1, the first day of the second quarter.
However, the profit contribution of VOXX was a different story.
At the International Builders’ Show (IBS) in Las Vegas, NV, earlier this year, show organizers employed expert builders/craftsmen/tradesmen/and installers who conceived, designed, created, and built a new $15.5 million modern custom home designed to set the standard for luxury living in 2025 and beyond. According to organizers, “The New American Home 2025 is a statement of what’s to come in the world of residential architecture. Join us as we redefine the standard of luxury living.” Savant and the Savant Power system were a major part of adding the luxury experience to this home.
Sonos, Inc. [Nasdaq: SONO] announced today that its Board of Directors has decided to appoint Tom Conrad – current Interim CEO – as the new official Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Conrad, who was a member of the Board of Directors when it chose to dismiss previous CEO Patrick Spence, was named as the Interim CEO back in January.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag in new residential construction data published today, generally known as housing starts. In June, the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of the start of new home construction jumped 4.6% over the revised May rate. However, this rate remains 0.5% lower than the rate of construction starts in June of 2024, one year ago.
On Thursday, Premium Audio Company (PAC), a division of Voxx, which itself is now part of Gentex Corp., today formally acknowledged what has long been rumored: that it has lost its licensing deal with Pioneer Corporation for the rights to the Pioneer and Elite brands. The announcement portrays the decision as a “mutual” one that concludes “a successful multi-year collaboration.”
She was a fresh-faced, 20-something college student in the late 1980s when, on a brief pause from her university studies, EveAnna Dauray took a job on the production floor at Vacuum Tube Logic, a high-end audio company in California run by David Manley and his son Luke. There is no way she could have known it at the time, but she was about to embark on a crazy, exciting, at times painful, though always rewarding, epic journey. It was a journey that spanned some four decades and would see her rise from an entry-level production floor worker to owner and President of Manley Laboratories, Inc. (a company split off and independent from VTL), which she recently successfully sold to industry entrepreneur Dirk Ulrich…achieving the American Dream by providing her with the resources and the freedom to pursue with passion the next exciting phase of her life’s journey.
Two major South Korean tech behemoths, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, have released preliminary reports on their financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2025, and these results paint a troubling portrait of a changing trade environment where declining profits and softening consumer demand foretell a challenging road ahead. Both companies reported modest revenue declines and more dramatic operating profit declines as each scrambles to adjust operations for a challenging business environment.
A new survey of U.S. companies by KPMG reports that they are already feeling the pain of the Administration’s new tariff program, which is still under negotiation with countries around the world. Even at current levels, U.S. businesses have been impacted, reporting they are experiencing declining gross margins…will be forced to further raise prices…are already being impacted by consumer pushback…have suffered sales declines from retaliatory tariff increases in other countries, and more.
Overall, it’s a pretty sobering look at the impact of tariffs on companies now, and a scary foretelling of what they anticipate in a darkened future.
