Sonos has experienced a tumultuous last two months, with the release of its first-ever headphones, theSonos Ace, and then the launch of the new Sonos app, which garnered a lot of attention for itsill-fated, messy release. The company addressed the situation in itsQ3 earningson Wednesday, with CEO Patrick Spence acknowledging the quarter’s highs and lows.
“Thanks to Ace, our long-awaited entry into headphones, we reported year-over-year revenue growth and delivered results that slightly exceeded our expectations in our third quarter,” said Spence. “This was overshadowed by the problems that our customers and partners experienced as a result of the rollout of our new app, which in turn has required us to reduce our Fiscal 2024 guidance.”
Sonos apologizes for the state of its redesigned app, details update roadmap
Missing features and bugs have plagued the new app since its May launch.
App failures are now delaying products, impacting expected earnings
The company expects lower sales in Q4 while they focus on rebuilding trust with customers
The financial consequences of the flawed app rollout are now impacting the release of two new products that were slated to launch later this year. Spence outlined this during the company’searnings callon Wednesday.
“The app situation has become a headwind to existing product sales, and we believe our focus needs to be addressing the app ahead of everything else,” he said. “This means delaying the two major new product releases we had planned for Q4 until our app experience meets the level of quality that we, our customers and our partners expect from Sonos.”
“While this has the painful effect of reducing our Q4 sales expectations, we believe it will set our future products up for greater success over the medium to long term,” Spence continued.
The Sonos Ace now supports TV audio swap with Ray and Beam soundbars
The software update also expands audio swap support with the Arc to Android devices.
Focus is shifting to fixing the buggy Sonos app
Sonos expects to spend up to $30 million fixing the app
Spence went on to highlight that Sonos would focus specifically on fixing bugs and adding missing features to the app, with updates slated to drop every two weeks to chip away at these problems.
The financial cost of this focus is expected to cost the company between $20 to $30 million, with Spence remarking that these costs are “necessary to right the ship for the long term.”
While the situation has clearly impacted the mood and overall strategy at Sonos, Spence stated on the call that he “will not rest until we’re in a position where we’ve addressed these issues and have customers raving about Sonos again.”
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