Sonos aims to ride 'Sonic Internet' to IPO success
The smart home audio company is betting on the rising interest of voice assistants.
Sonos has filed to go public.
In yet another sign of how home audio systems and smart speakers have become the technology of the moment, speaker maker Sonos has filed to go public.
Sonos is looking to capitalize on the new normal in home entertainment and life online. "The proliferation of streaming services and the rapid adoption of voice assistants are significantly changing audio consumption habits and how consumers interact with the internet," it said Friday in its filing with the SEC.
It sums up the trend as the "Sonic Internet," the intersection of the content we consume -- including music, movies, TV shows, podcasts and virtual reality -- and the voice technology that lets us interact with it.
Sonos said in the SEC filing that more than 19 million of its products are sitting in roughly 6.9 million households around the world. It estimated that customers listened to 5 billion hours of audio content using Sonos products last year, a 33 percent increase from 2016.
In the six months that ended March 31, the smart home audio maker generated revenue of $655.7 million, up 18 percent from the same six-month period a year earlier, with net income of $13.1 million. During its full 2017 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, Sonos recorded a net loss of $14.2 million on revenue of $992.5 million. A little over half of its fiscal 2017 revenue came from outside the US.
Sonos is among a number of companies riding the wave of smart speakers that's been dominated by Amazon , its Echo devices and its Alexa voice assistant. In fact, the company's own voice-activated Sonos One and Sonos Beam speakers make use of Alexa. This year, Sonos also plans to incorporate Apple's Siri , via Airplay 2, as well as Google Assistant.
But Sonos also acknowledged in the SEC filing that it faces intensifying competition from Amazon, Apple and Google , along with Samsung , Bose , Bang & Olufsen and others.
The company will trade under the symbol "SONO" on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
Sonos declined to comment beyond the SEC document.
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