Sonos CEO confirms 100 laid off as app woes persist

American audio equipment heavyweight Sonos confirmed it cut 100 workers’ jobs centered around its marketing department. The cut in staff numbers comes just over a year after the company pared down its workforce of 1,800 by 7%.

Sonos is currently pushing its flagship Ace headphones while battling to fix the beleaguered Sonos app and its standing with customers. The layoffs were first confirmed by The Verge earlier this week, with further confirmation provided to Engadget by Patrick Spence, Sonos’ chief executive.

“We made the difficult decision to say goodbye to approximately 100 team members, representing 6% of the company,” he said. “This action was a difficult, but necessary, measure to ensure continued, meaningful investment in Sonos’ product roadmap while setting Sonos up for long-term success.” 

The Ace headphones have generally impressed, but wider noise around the company because of its app launch failure has overshadowed everything else. Spence informed investors on an earnings call last month that a fix for the app will set the company back around $20-30 million, a cost that includes new efforts to win back customer support.

Spence says his push for speed backfired

In May, the CEO was compelled to pen an open letter to consumers, apologizing for the botched redesign and subsequent launch of the app.

Spence stated, “There isn’t an employee at Sonos who isn’t pained by having let you down, and I assure you that fixing the app for all of our customers and partners has been and continues to be our number one priority.”

The supposedly revamped Sonos app for Android, iOS, and desktop launched in May without key functions such as sleep timers and alarms. Customers reported problems with speaker setups, the app falling to load, and intermittent outages.

On the same earnings call referenced above, Spence acknowledged his demand for speed to deliver new products has had unintended consequences.

“Since I took over as CEO, one of my particular points of emphasis has been the imperative for Sonos to move faster,” he said on the July call.  “That is what led to my promise to deliver at least two new products every year – a promise we have successfully delivered on. With the app, however, my push for speed backfired.” 

The company has insisted the staff layoffs will not impact the roadmap to deliver much-needed fixes for the app.

Featured image via Ideogram

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