Strategy in TECH...
Specialty AV retailer and e-commerce site Audio Advice today launched a comprehensive – and free – home theater design tool targeted for consumers looking to craft the perfect theater for their home. Featuring an interactive 3D interface, Audio Advice’s Home Theater Designer makes it fun and easy for consumers to create plans for an acoustically correct home theater system – including precise placement of speakers, TV or projector, and seating.
Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) had what appeared to be a big win this week, generating financial results that handily beat its fiscal second quarter estimates, driven largely by a huge 242.2% increase in ecommerce sales. Their fiscal second quarter, the 13-week period that ended August 1, 2020 was big, coming in at $9.910 billion – even in a COVID-19 ravaged quarter – fully 4% higher than the $9.536 billion in the same quarter in 2019.
And yet, the company’s stock value DROPPED on the announcement of their quarterly results. And in after-hours trading, Best Buy stock lost as much as 5% of its value. Why did that happen?
Sonos, Inc. (NASDAQ: SONO) announced this week that they are adding a new member to their Board of Directors. In fact, they even increased the size of the Board to make room for this new addition. The news surprised – and impressed – many market observers, as the person they are adding is Panos Panay, a top Microsoft Corp. executive. You see, if you are not familiar with Panay, there is something special about his background that makes him an intriguing addition to the Sonos Board.
By almost any measure, the housing market is in a major rebound, with the U.S. Commerce Department reporting on Tuesday that residential construction starts jumped an impressive 22.6% in July. This is the largest jump in housing starts in almost four years, according to a report by Reuters.
Last week, a letter was sent to all Onkyo dealers in the United States notifying them that their dealer agreements were being terminated. The reason for this termination? Onkyo USA Corporation no longer exists and therefore can no longer serve them. Don’t miss the significance of this historic moment – for the first time in 45-years there is no Onkyo subsidiary in the U.S., once the largest market for parent Onkyo Pioneer Corporation (OPC) of Osaka, Japan.
Milwaukee, WI based Koss Corporation (NASDAQ:KOSS) last month launched a significant litigation effort against several major industry brands in an effort to assert and protect its IP portfolio rights. On July 22, 2020, Koss filed lawsuits against each of Apple, Inc., Bose Corporation, PEAG LLC dba JLAB Audio, Plantronics, Inc., and Skullcandy, Inc. Each of these auspicious brands, Koss says, are infringing on their patents covering wireless headphones and speakers.
As part of an internal restructuring to accommodate their recent acquisition of the distribution rights to certain Onkyo brands, Voxx International Corporation announced this week that it has renamed the existing Klipsch Holding LLC to the rather generically named Premium Audio Company LLC. This is just the first change, as I’ve learned more announcements are just around the corner.
By now, most in the industry know that Crestron Electronics, the widely renowned luxury residential electronics systems manufacturer, is also a large major supplier of high quality and mission critical solutions for the corporate commercial and industrial markets. Today, the company is announcing that their two divisions worked together to create a new product called the Flex MM – a unique, flexible, unified communications solution that is just about perfect for the new Work From Home…or as Creston likes to call it…the Work from Anywhere…remotely distributed workforce.
Specialty electronics manufacturer AudioControl and advanced digital room correction technology provider Dirac have teamed up to bring Dirac’s latest Dirac Live Bass Control technology into AudioControl’s line of high performance AV receivers, preamp/processors, and amplifiers. The perfect marriage of technology and application, this partnership will help spread Dirac’s technology throughout the custom integration community where AudioControl has a strong and supportive network of dealers.
The Florida Audio Expo announced this week that they are cancelling their February 2021 high-end audio exposition due to “the extraordinary times and continued uncertainty.” Although their announcement does not explicitly name COVID-19 or SARS-CoV2, comments by show founders make it clear, noting that they “put our customers well being first.”
