Sonos enters in-car entertainment – the first partner is Audi
A photo of the interior of the Audi Q4 E-Tron announced on Tuesday revealed even before the official confirmation, that Sonos ventures into new territory. Only later, in the course of the announcement of the new Sonos Roam smart speaker, which is designed for indoors and outdoors, did Sonos boss Patrick Spence confirm the partnership with Audi in a video conference with analysts.
Car speakers from Sonos have been circulating since 2019
about being Sonos Business could also expand to cars and other areas such as battery-powered speakers, headphones and in-car entertainment, has been reported since 2019. Some of the products that were speculated at the time have already become reality with the Move (Test) and Roam. Due to the announced partnership, the car speaker plans are now also official. It is curious that the announcement of the new product category was almost incidental.
Sonos speaker in the Audi Q4 E- Tron in front. (Image. Audi)
In response to an analyst request, Spence stated that Audi was innovative and ready to experiment. At the moment, however, the manufacturer does not want to disclose more than the confirmation of the partnership and the Sonos logo emblazoned in the Q4 E-Tron. More details about the cooperation will be available soon, they say.
Sonos speakers in the Audi Q4 E-Tron rear. (Image. Audi)
Sonos faces tough competition in the in-car audio market
Sonos is fairly late with its entry into the car speaker market. Here, the manufacturer meets, among other things, the Samsung subsidiary Harman Kardon, which supplies a large number of car manufacturers with speakers. Audi, along with BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, Volvo and many more, is one of the customers.
Spence told the German press agency that Germany was the world’s second largest market for Sonos after the USA. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the manufacturer made around 58 million US dollars in sales with the Christmas business in Germany. In the US home market, the company generated a good half of the total revenue of around 646 million dollars (543 million euros).
It is also expected that Sonos will put its headphone plans into practice this year. The first patent sketches describing the design have already appeared.
With dpa material.
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