Sonos brings its acoustic technology to Audi cars
Sonos has partnered with Audi to supply the carmaker's Q4 E-Tron with audio, the first such partnership of the California audio company known for its home amplifiers.
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence confirmed the news after Audi published photos of the interior of the Q4 E-Tron showing the Sonos logo.
Audi has published a raft of shots showing the interior of its next electric car, the Q4 E-Tron.
And while the German carmaker confirmed the new AR display, others noticed the Sonos logo, although the collaboration was not mentioned in the press release.
"We want to be in all different sound classes, and a large part of that is in cars," Spence said during a question-and-answer session. Our first partnership to bring our audio expertise to cars is with Audi, and we'd love to start with Audi, they are very innovative in this area and ready to experiment.
Sonos CEO and former CEO of RIM indicated that more details about the Audi partnership will be shared soon, likely at the Q4 E-Tron launch event in April.
With the announcement, Sonos joins a long list of audio companies that have made the leap to cars, including Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, and Bang & Olufsen.
Partnerships are seen as a way for home audio companies to diversify revenue streams, and for carmakers to use the voice and marketing power of brands known for their voice to influence a buying decision.
But what makes the partnership interesting is that unlike other audio companies, Sonos has the free music streaming service Radio, along with the ad-free paid version, Radio HD.
This gives Sonos users the ability to seamlessly follow Radio listening sessions between home and car.
The news comes on the heels of the launch of the Sonos Roam, its $ 169 portable speaker.
It's also rumored that Sonos is working on headphones as the company is expanding its focus from whole-home audio to providing sound wherever you want it.
Separately, Sonos also said this week that its products were in more than 11 million homes by the end of 2020, with listening time jumping 33 percent during the pandemic.
It expects to have more than 500,000 paid radio subscribers, and is targeting 100 million users, but has not provided a timeline for either of them, and it expects its annual revenue to double to at least $ 2.25 billion by 2024.