This week we learned that the Sonos, Inc. (Nasdaq: SONO) plans to launch a new product into a new “multibillion-dollar” product category – strongly rumored to be headphones – has hit a snag, despite its best efforts. Company management has been enthusiastically talking up this diversification into an entirely new category for months – suggesting it will add at least $100 million to revenues this year. But now…those plans have had a monkey wrench thrown into them…
See why this new Sonos product is held up…and for how long
A new report this week by Bloomberg News quoting “people with knowledge of the matter,” say this new Sonos product category has hit a “software snag” that has pushed back production as the company works to fix the problem. This snag will also serve to delay the introduction of the new product by at least a month at this point…perhaps more.
Originally, Sonos had said this new product or line would launch in the back half of 2024. However, Bloomberg says that – prior to this technical snafu – the launch had been moved up to early May. That projection is now moot and the launch is pushed back – so far – to sometime in mid-June.
Sonos Has Never Confirmed the Category They Will Enter This Year
While the company has never confirmed just what the new category is they plan to enter, it has been widely reported to be in the headphones category. Reporting from Bloomberg, which has its own company-related sources, has confidently stuck to predicting the headphone category for some time now.
The technical issue delaying the launch is said to be related to how wireless over-ear headphones connect to Wi-Fi networks. The bug was detected during a testing stage called production validation testing (PVT). The report says that this stage normally occurs about two weeks ahead of mass production.
Sonos Teams Hard at Work to Fix Issue
Mass production for this new headphone model will be handled by Luxshare Precision Industry Co. in China. Presumably, this is where the PVT testing was being done when the bug was discovered. Reportedly, Sonos teams are hard at work to resolve this problem, which seems to be more of a glitch, more than anything else.
The company is said to remain confident in its ability to move past this glitch and launch what it believes will be a blockbuster product. Production is planned to be somewhere between 650,000 – to – 1 million units over the next year. It is said the headphones will be priced at $449, “competing with others at the top of the market.”
A Lot is Riding on This Launch
However, all of this depends on Sonos expeditiously fixing the glitch. For now, the report says the “timing is still fluid and could shift again.”
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has a lot riding on this and other new categories that the company is rumored to be planning to enter. Growth at Sonos has stagnated in recent years, and entering new categories is Spence’s plan to, as Bloomberg put it, to “reignite growth.”
Working on Headphones Since 2019
The company is said to have been working on headphones since 2019 and plans to sell two versions, one in a black finish with the other in white. The headphones are designed to interact with other Sonos products, as well as stream audio from TVs and various music streaming services.
See more on Sonos by visiting sonos.com.
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