without addressing some lower price-points?
Sonos seemed to have so much promise, but it’s still such a high cost of entry for consumers. At $349 for the ZP90 as their least expensive rendering node… for a two zone starter kit, you’ve got a $700 commitment without any speakers or remote control.
It’s a shame we aren’t seeing some cleverer marketing schemes, because Sonos has all but nailed the user experience. If they added some interactivity to their remote control software and sought alternate revenue streams, they could effectively subsidize a lower price point for their hardware.
2 Comments
Hello,
We appreciate the attention you are focusing on the wireless home audio category.
In late October 2008, Sonos introduced what many in the media have called the best remote application for the iPhone with the Sonos Controller for iPhone – http://www.sonos.com/iphone. The introduction of the Sonos CR for iPhone has provided us with our largest household growth numbers since the inception of the product. It has allowed us to expand our market to include anyone/everyone that owns an iPhone or iPod touch. If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, you now have a free Sonos Controller and can get started in one room with Sonos for $349 (if you have an existing stereo system). In fact, contrary to your opinion, these customers have pointed out the appeal of this new Controller and have deemed it “marketing trickery” http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=11158.
The new CR for iPhone has provided us year on year household growth that is in the double figures through mid-March. Business is good and if you’re considering a wireless audio system, there should be no hesitation in continuing to consider Sonos as the premium choice today to get music in 1, 2, 5 or all the way up to 32 rooms.
Does Sonos survive the recession, yes. Does Sonos continue to bring innovative products to the market to help expand awareness of the wireless home audio category? Stay tuned…..
Respectfully,
Thomas Meyer – Sonos
Thomas,
Thanks for contributing. I think your iPhone app is great. It’s completely unfortunate (and weird) that you were slightly demonized for utilizing the iPhone/touch platform as a remote. In my opinion and many others, obviously, you did exactly what you were supposed to do… particularly offering it for free, in full acknowledgment that the iPhone and iPod touch themselves aren’t free… yet what people have invested in is a scalable and flexible device platform that should enable cool user experiences like Sonos provided.
I’m someone who is focused on multi-zone audio as the key experience that wireless and networked content enable… therefore I measure a system’s cost as the amount of money it takes to enable more than one listening zone. I challenge your notion that $349 is your system’s cost of entry, and I also challenge you that even that is cheap enough. It only enables one zone, and it requires a lot of other gear that is not free (a home network, a iPod touch or iPhone, an existing sound system including speakers and amplifiers).
It is clear you are confident in Sonos’s long term viability and double digit growth numbers are indeed impressive in this economy, however it is my opinion that you then must be leaving so much MORE upside on the table BECAUSE you have such a great user experience.
Consider younger buyers… who only have a laptop… and for whom $349 is a lot of money) – let’s take this year’s incoming college freshmen class, or sophomores leaving the dorms and getting their own houses and off-campus apartments… they have no existing stereo equipment… they have no AVR, they’ve been listening to music primarily off their PC and less expensive portable devices like the iPod nano and headphones their whole life, or if they were lucky sneaking time on their parent’s gear. How much do these kids need to spend to get into the Sonos experience and become long term customers for you going forward… so that one day they can graduate on to your more expensive nodes like the ZP120?
This is the dynamic I’m trying to convey. Bring more people in. Leverage your great start in creating a brand and an ecosystem. Soon there will be other players and technologies vying for this experience, and Sonos’s high cost of entry and the limited number of early adopters who you’re proud to call customers will not be enough to sustain you from an aggressive, affordable, more viable competitive threat.
You’ve benefitted quite a while already from being the only well-executed game in town. It’s just that history indicates that won’t last forever.