Sonos Inc., one of the earliest players in the US smart speaker industry, roared during its debut at Wall Street on August 2, 2018. Sonos IPO opened modestly with $16 per share after establishing the initial selling price of $15 on Wednesday evening. The IPO value was set much below the expected range between $17and $19.
Listed under the ticker “SONO” on NASDAQ, the company’s stock traded as high as 32 percent to $21 per on the first day after a slow launch. The Sonos IPO day wrapped with $19.91 closing price, marking a valuation of about $1.95 billion. It is considerably above the estimated $1.48 billion when calculated at the initial offer price.
“It doesn’t really change anything for our strategy, for our product roadmap perspective,” stated Michael Groeninger, Sonos Vice President of Corporate Finance, cites Variety.
Smart Speaker Industry
Entering 16th year of its existence this year, Sonos began with manufacturing world-class Digital Music System in 2005. Fun Fact: Ninety three percent of the launched products are still active today.
Sonos estimated about 6.9 million houses presently possess a total of almost 10 million Sonos gadgets including smart speakers, sound bars and sound beams. The company posted revenue of $992.5 million in 2017.
The sound hardware company unveiled its flagship voice-enabled smart speaker, Sonos One a year ago competing with giants such as Google Home, Amazon Echo, and HomePod. It also partnered with IKEA last December to bring “music and sound” into all aspects of home furniture.
Other than being rivals, Google, Amazon and Apple along with Spotify have also collaborated with Sonos to develop home speakers of tomorrow. The tech giants allow to stream their respective music apps on the Sonos speakers. Moreover, voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant (coming soon) are integrated into the Sonos smart home speakers enabling them to be controlled over voice commands.
While talking about streaming, Chris Kallai, Vice President of Product Management at Sonos informed that there will be 176 million paid streaming services worldwide by the end of this year and will reach 293 million by 2021.
The smart speaker world is moving at a rapid pace where the HomePod will soon start supporting calls. Plus, the smart speakers mounted with smart displays are now being introduced in the markets.
Groeninger said, “It’s about getting the right long-term investors today, building that base of investors over the long term, and executing against our business model and plans so that we can drive shareholder value over the long term.”
NASDAQ Bell Sound Different on SONOS IPO Day
Leveraging its “obsession with sound”, Sonos has now redesigned the NASDAQ Bell, a hum that has resonated in our ears since 2000 at the opening and closing hours of the stock market.
The Santa Barbara, California-based smart speaker enterprise and NASDAQ partnered to take a fresh approach on the Bell music. “Sonos Sound Experience Lead Giles Martin and Academy Award-winning sound engineer Chris Jenkins worked with Nasdaq on the project,” the company mentioned it in a blog.
“Experimenting with different instruments and techniques, our sound engineers artfully created a bell that both honors Nasdaq’s roots as a disruptor and speaks to our shared commitment to the pursuit of innovation, knowledge and improvement.”
Heard first time on Sonos IPO day, the new NASDAQ bell music holds more energetic vibes than its predecessor and ends with the sound of a thing that matters most to the stock market, that is, a spinning coin representing money.
