Strategy in TECH...
In a move I have been anticipating for weeks, the Sonos Board has finally made a move and dismissed Patrick Spence as CEO as of this morning, Monday, January 13, 2025. The company has named a member of the Board – Tom Conrad – as an interim CEO, while a search has been launched for its next CEO.
Sonos, Inc. (Nasdaq: SONO) Chief Executive Officer Patrick Spence did his best to sound upbeat and exuberant recently as he discussed the company’s results for its fourth quarter (4Q) and full year of Fiscal 2024 on an earnings call with financial analysts. Although most expected poor results in the wake of recent challenges, the numbers were particularly rough as the company is struggling against market headwinds in the audio segment, a less-than-satisfying rollout of what it had hoped would be a blockbuster new product in a blockbuster new category (Ace headphones), and most vexingly, from its own self-inflicted wound with a horribly botched app rollout.
Spence faced a tough sell to analysts, even with reduced expectations, as the numbers were quite disappointing.
While Sonos (Nasdaq: SONO) claims to have most of its app problems behind it, multiple reports are emerging that suggest it may have an even bigger problem – the introduction of its Ace premium headphone has flopped. If these reports are true, then Sonos may indeed be staring into the jaws of the one monster that can truly terrify it – growing consumer resistance to its new products.
Sonos (Nasdaq: SONO) announced this week that it was issuing new quality and customer experience “commitments,” as it seeks to rebuild its deteriorating reputation in the wake of a disastrous app launch earlier this year that has caused many, if not most, Sonos systems to stop operating properly – if they operate at all. There has been tremendous upheaval among Sonos customers who have reacted angrily and negatively on Sonos-related message boards and other social media sites.
And now, just last week, Morgan Stanley analysts issued a rare “double downgrade” on Sonos shares – a significant ratings drop indicating that it expects the value of Sonos stock to underperform the market in the near- and mid-term future. Morgan Stanley’s analysis of why this double downgrade was necessary is pretty devastating.
Last week, Sonos, Inc. (Nasdaq: SONO) announced the results for its third quarter of Fiscal Year 2024. CEO Patrick Spence must feel like the tech company can’t catch a break. The company successfully launched its first headphone product, Sonos Ace, to much fanfare in June – the load-in of which helped to drive better-than-expected results for the 3rd quarter of Fiscal 2024. And yet the company’s launch of its newest totally “re-architected” app turned into an unmitigated disaster – infuriating dealers and consumers alike and spoiling all of the positive momentum from Ace and the improved quarter.
What’s worse, the company warns financial analysts that the app disaster will likely continue, causing the company to push back the launch of two new products planned for the 4th quarter and to downwardly revise sales and profit forecasts for the next quarter and the full fiscal year. The ugliness, according to the company, will likely continue into the 1st quarter of Fiscal 2025. Ouch!
Sonos, Inc. (Nasdaq: SONO) announced its financial performance for the second quarter of Fiscal 2024, the period that ended on March 30, 2024. The numbers, as we’re seeing more consistently across a wide variety of consumer brands, were rough…really rough. Revenues in the quarter declined a nasty 16.9% and the company’s Net Loss more than doubled, increasing by a scary 127%.
Yet CEO Patrick Spence claimed in a statement that “…we delivered results that slightly exceeded our expectations…” Either they were expecting a really devastating result, or I’ll have whatever he’s having!
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…
On Tuesday, Sonos, Inc. [Nasdaq: SONO] reported its first quarter, fiscal 2024 results for the period that ended December 30, 2023. While the actual numbers were a bit of a mixed bag with revenues down – even though the company embarked on a strong holiday promotional push – the company booked strong gross profit improvements and generated more cash beating Wall Street estimates. This resulted in a big jump in its share price on the next trading day.
After the close of markets on Wednesday, Sonos released its Fiscal 2023 fourth quarter (Q4) and full-year results. As one of the industry’s top consumer brands, Sonos’ latest quarterly and full-year earnings put the post-COVID strain in full display as the company was hit with both sales and profit declines even though it took aggressive steps to adjust to an adverse consumer market.
The company says loyal customers are its greatest buffer against macroeconomic headwinds, but those headwinds were particularly daunting in 2023.
Last week, Sonos quietly let the Securities and Exchange Commission know that Panos Panay resigned from the Sonos board of directors, effective September 27, 2023. They made no public announcement that I am aware of, even though this news could have a major impact on the company’s direction. Why? Simply because Panos Panay is one of the most respected technology product gurus in the industry – so much so that Sonos trumpeted his arrival loudly when they convinced him to join their board in 2020.
Separately, and within just days of the exit of Panay, the company announced three “new” (I’ll explain the quotes around the word new below) additions to its executive team, including a new, promoted from within, Chief Product Officer…
