Strategy in TECH...
In an unusual Saturday night filing, Guitar Center, Inc., parent company to AV integration company Audio Visual Design Group (AVDG), filed for bankruptcy protection. The move was widely expected by many industry watchers for years, and caps a difficult business history for Guitar Center, starting back in 2007 when they were first acquired by Bain Capital.
Sonos, Inc. [NASDAQ: SONO] released their fourth quarter and full year financial results for fiscal 2020. Their performance pleasantly surprised Wall Street and their stock value exploded well over 20% in Thursday trading as the company exceeded analysts’ estimates for both revenue growth and profits. But is everything as it appears here?
Onkyo Corporation had a really tough fiscal 2020 – the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2020. How tough was it? So tough that the company was forced to announce that a massive drop in revenues and record losses had pushed the company into insolvency – calling into question its ability to continue as a going concern. It doesn’t get much tougher than that. And this announcement triggered a Tokyo Stock Exchange action – invoking a rule that starts a clock on a limited grace period for the company to cure the situation – their insolvency – before a forced delisting from the JASDAQ stock exchange is implemented.
Last week, CEDIA announced their CEDIA Propel initiative, said to be a new “Affinity Program” designed to offer members a new kind of benefit. The announcement caught my eye almost immediately because this program is unlike other other affinity program with which I’m familiar. Typically such programs offer members benefits such as special pricing on health insurance or discounts on UPS shipping and the like. In this case, CEDIA is recommending technology brands who offer discount programs to CEDIA members on their products.
To me, this sounded at least a little bit like the kind of service provided by a buying group.
When we last visited with Velodyne, it was all the way back in 2014 when the company quietly laid off audio staff, and suddenly – without warning – fired all of their manufacturer sales representatives and their dealers. Shortly after this, the company hired a high-powered retail executive (who would go on to eventually go to prison) to launch a direct-to-consumer business. Our coverage drew the attention of then Velodyne President Marta Thoma Hall, who is wife of company founder and chief engineer David Hall, leading to an interview with her on the many dramatic changes taking place at the company. Whew! That was a lot of action in a very short period of time.
Ultimately, it appears that David Hall got bored with audio and moved on with his new prized invention – an improved Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) sensor technology that is important to the autonomous vehicle market. According to a report by Audioholics, Ford and China’s Baidu partnered to invest $150 million in Velodyne’s Lidar technology and Elvis…er…Hall…has definitely left the audio building. Velodyne split into two companies (Velodyne Lidar is now a $100 million public company [NASDAQ:VLDR]) and for a time last year, it looked like curtains for the audio division.
Strata-gee reader Jeff (see comments here…) asks, “What’s up with the revival of Thiel Audio’s website thielaudio.com?” That is a good question, as the company has been shut down, and all inventory, factory, and office goods were auctioned off just under three years ago. Shortly after the auction, Thiel Audio’s website went dark and has been that way ever since.
Just when you thought 2020 was almost over and the COVID calamity and its associated disasters were mostly behind us, a source tipped Strata-gee off to a major new disaster that will almost surely cause a significant disruption in the 2021 supply of those critical A/V products we all use/sell/and install every day. You may not be aware of this AKM fire story now, but we are all facing what will likely be another major supply chain headache in the near future.
Emerald Holding, Inc. (NYSE:EEX), formerly Emerald Expositions, reported their fiscal 2020 third quarter results this week and despite their best efforts to shift their business to online virtual conferences, the company reported revenues of just $8.5 million and generated a net loss of $22.3 million. This loss was even deeper than their loss of $19.7 million in the same quarter in 2019 which was well before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S.
Last week, in dramatic fashion, Harman (part of Samsung) brand Mark Levinson announced the launch of an entirely new 5000 series family of products, whose lower price tag is designed to appeal to an expanded share of the market of audio enthusiasts. In a combination of well-produced video segments, coupled with live presentations to the industry media, Harman executives laid out their vision for the brand and presented the details of the engineering and craftsmanship behind their new line of electronics and sources that included a preamp, power amp, turntable and streaming SACD player
The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) announced at the end of last week that Global President and CEO Tabatha O’Connor will “depart” the organization at the end of her contract period in January. The news caught many by surprise and the organization’s announcement gives no clue as to any of the reasons behind this leadership change.
