Wireless speaker pioneer Sonos files for IPO
Sonos Inc. filed for a U.S. initial public offering as the wireless speaker pioneer gears up to take on increasing competition from Amazon, Google and Apple.
Along with rich rivals, the company warned that an escalation of the trade war between the U.S. and China could significantly damage its business.
The Santa Barbara, California-based company filed with an offering size of $100 million, a placeholder amount used to calculate fees that is likely to change. It plans to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol SONO, according to a regulatory filing Friday.
While the wireless speakers market is booming — Sonos says its customers listen to about 70 hours of content a month — competition has increased since the company introduced its first home-audio system in 2005. Sonos, which has traditionally marketed its sleek, high-end speakers to audiophiles who prize sound quality, cited an “extremely competitive and rapidly evolving” market among risk factors in its IPO. The company named Bang & Olufsen, Bose and Samsung Electronics among its main rivals, alongside newer entrants Amazon.com, Apple and Google.
Sonos is targeting a valuation of $2.5 billion to $3 billion in the IPO, people familiar with the matter said in April. The company was founded in 2002 and has been led by Patrick Spence since January 2017.
In recent years, voiceactivated speakers from Amazon and others had Sonos scrambling to catch up. The company launched the Sonos One, an Amazon Alexa-controlled smart speaker that competes with the Echo, Google Home and Apple’s HomePod; in June, Sonos debuted a new voicecontrolled home theater speaker for living rooms, called the Beam.
In an effort to make its products widely popular, Sonos lets users connect to multiple voice assistants and stream music via other companies’ services. Its products are being integrated in Apple’s new AirPlay 2 wireless musicstreaming system and Google’s Assistant. Sonos doesn’t offer its own music or voice-activation services.