Dive Brief:
- Sonos is still working to rebuild customer trust following a disastrous app release in May 2024, executives said on a Q2 2025 earnings call Wednesday.
- A slate of recent updates were focused on improving stability, speed and usability, according to interim CEO Tom Conrad. Social sentiment is on the rise, while inbound support inquiries are down.
- “My view here is simple: Our software must be responsive, reliable and intuitive,” Conrad said during the call. “No exceptions.”
Dive Insight:
Sonos has been working hard to win back customer trust through a seven-point plan released last year, but leaders still see plenty of work ahead and are focusing on software improvements for better customer experience.
The company released nine software updates in the last 120 days, with more on the way, Conrad said.
“For the balance of the year, we are focused on using software to drive differentiation and experience improvements,” Conrad said. “And we do this not just to repair our relationship with our customers after the missteps of last year, but also because our flywheel is powered by software.”
Conrad, a Snap Inc. and Pandora veteran who sits on the Sonos board of directors, was tapped to help the speaker company fix its app last year and eventually took on the interim CEO role in January. Then-CEO Patrick Spence departed the company after taking ownership of the app issues, saying his “push for speed backfired” during an earnings call last October.
The app released in May 2024 suffered from user interface issues, including the lack of volume numbers. Sonos’ seven-point plan called on the company to commit to an “unwavering focus on the customer experience” and appoint a quality ombudsperson to make it easier for employees to escalate experience concerns to executives.
Conrad’s efforts so far have included reorganizing the company’s product and engineering staff around key priorities, leading the company to layoff 200 employees, Conrad said on a February Q1 2025 earnings call. At the time, Conrad expressed confidence in the smaller, more efficient team’s ability to improve Sonos’ core experience.
Sonos also ended its relationship with IKEA, and the companies will stop releasing new products together, Conrad said on the earnings call Wednesday. Sonos’ exit from the partnership is another part of his effort to focus on improving the aspects of the business that matter the most.
Revenue was up 3% year over year in the second quarter of 2025, and the company saw a strong response to a targeted promotion aimed at its install base, according to CFO Saori Casey.
“We believe this is a testament to the progress we have made improving our core experience and restoring our customers' trust,” Casey said during the call.
The company reported a net loss of $70.1 million for the second quarter of 2025, up slightly from the $69.7 million net loss reported in the second quarter of 2024, according to a company earnings release.
