Sonos Redesigned Its App and Made a Subscription Model Possible

It’s been a rough six months for Sonos. In its FY24 earnings call, it was even remarked by investors that Sonos had only added 1 million new users this year—that might sound impressive, but it was said to be the lowest in the last “five to 10 years.” And while the overall speakers per household were up to 3.08 from 3.05 last year, with a slowing new user base, how can Sonos continue to make money in what is looking to be a saturated market? In Good Company Sonos wouldn’t be the first company to consider whether a subscription model might help to keep things buoyant. While overall revenue was down YOY in Q3 2024, and layoffs are happening as a result, its subscriber revenue had grown 11 percent, showing the promise this model holds when hardware sales falter. In 2021, during the Activision Blizzard acquisition, legal documents showed Xbox's Game Pass had brought in a total of $2.9 billion from consoles in the fiscal year ending 2021—around 18 percent of the total Xbox business.