Consumers thinking of buying the mew Sonos Ace headphones, may want to hang on a bit with the struggling US audio Company tipped to slash the price of their new product offering, in an effort to shift stock after over estimating sales for their new headphones.
Struggling to come to grips with a lack of traction following their first venture into the headphone market the Company is tipped to be set to axe their expensive entry level cans for a new premium version, as the Company desperately tries to hold onto the notion that Sonos is a premium sound offering when in reality they are at the bottom, end of the affordable premium market, due to problems with the Sonos App and the emergence of new network speakers from the likes of Audio Pro which when coupled with a WiiM amp or streamer is a cheaper and superior solution than a Sonos speaker or Sonos subwoofer and amp.
Poor reviews, an app that failed and a history of trying to nobble customers to get a new speaker sale appear to have done real damage to the Sonos brand, which observers claim is going to struggle to “get skin back in the game” especially as their competitors are rolling out what is seen as new and superior sound systems.
Recently it was reported that Sonos has slashed its manufacturing targets for the Ace by almost 90% resulting in the Company working on a discounting program in an effort to shift over A$100m dollars’ worth of headphone stock.
During the past six months as their problems played out the share value at the US Company slumped 25%.
Bloomberg claims that Sonos management are working on a two-pronged strategy. Prong one is to release a higher-spec version of the Ace for the same price; prong two is to slash the price of the existing model.
Audio retailers in Australia that ChannelNews has spoken to are not convinced that a premium Sonos branded headphone will work.
As one observer said, “The Sonos brand is what is broken as well as their app and while the app can be fixed the damage done to the brand is not as easy to fix”.
Bloomberg says that the plans are still being discussed, and that some Sonos insiders don’t think the current plan is a good one.
Tech Radar claimed recently that the Sonos Ace headphones are in a tough place right now because they’re priced as premium products from a premium brand – a strategy that worked really well for Apple’s AirPods Max, which benefit both from the headphones being fashionable and from the loyalty of Apple fans. But Apple hasn’t had months of furious customers and bad publicity around its audio products, and Sonos has.
