Bose buys McIntosh, storied maker of high-end luxury audio equipment
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Bose Corp. will buy the McIntosh Group, a deal that can present the Massachusetts-primarily based mostly mostly company alter of one amongst primarily the most storied names in high-pause audio.
McIntosh will proceed to delight in the high-pause audio instruments it is identified for out of its longtime headquarters in Novel York, Bose CEO Lila Snyder talked about. The deal also involves Sonus Faber, an organization that makes high-pause audio system by hand in Italy.
The acquisition of the 2 audio workshops presents Bose glean admission to into the high-pause luxurious audio market, Snyder suggested CNBC in an interview.
“There is this probability for luxurious, where the patron is more discerning, primarily attracted to the heritage and the story, and that handcrafted nature,” she talked about.
Snyder, who took over as Bose CEO in 2020, did no longer present terms or a designate for the deal. McIntosh used to be previously owned by Highlander Partners, a Dallas-primarily based mostly mostly private equity firm.
McIntosh has been making high-pause amplifiers and just a few audio instruments since 1949, and one amongst its devices can designate tens of thousands of bucks. Sonus Faber sells a pair of audio system that charges $140,000.
The acquisition shows how Bose is navigating an atmosphere where there might perchance be more competitors in headphones and audio electronics than ever. Bose is privately held and would now not share annual earnings, although it had about $3 billion in sales in 2023, per Forbes. It has about 3,000 workers.
Bose enters the high-pause luxurious audio market
Luxurious audio — outlined as products that designate bigger than $5,000 — grew 12% in 2023 to about $2.8 billion in complete sales, per an estimate from Futuresource Consulting. The deal will allow Bose to take a look at a elevated-pause marketplace for its products, that are already costly – a pair of Bose headphones can easily designate $350.
“These are just a few possibilities that unprejudiced now we’re no longer primarily reaching with our abilities and with our products,” she talked about.
Snyder did no longer rule out the possibility of Bose producing McIntosh-branded headphones or just a few products.
“We supply out reflect there might perchance be a right different around wearables within the posh and high-performance home as neatly, which is something that we’d ask you to seem from us down the boulevard,” Synder talked about.
Bose is handiest-identified for its audio system and its headphones, in conjunction with the QuietComfort headphones line, which used to be one amongst the first noise-canceling headsets to hit the market in 2000. It also sells soundbars, wi-fi earbuds, audio system and audio instruments for vehicles. It divested a bunch that constructed sound systems for auditoriums and just a few knowledgeable environments final year.
The audio market has grown since Bose used to be one amongst the few high-pause brands.
Bose now competes against some of the largest companies on the earth, in conjunction with Apple, which sold Beats Electronics for $3 billion in 2014 and released the AirPods in 2016, focusing on the top price headphone market.
There is also recent audio-centered competitors for Bose.
Sonos, which used to be handiest identified for its in-home audio system, introduced its first noise-canceling headphones earlier this year, although the company is reeling from an app redesign in Could maybe also unprejudiced that used to be received poorly by customers. Bose also spent the past decade competing with natty audio system from the likes of Amazon and Google that had been typically priced aggressively low to spur adoption.
The acquisition of the 2 luxurious audio workshops might perchance inspire Bose develop within the in-vehicle stereo market, which Snyder talked about makes up just a few 3rd of the company’s total enterprise. Sonus Faber produces audio system for Lamborghini vehicles, to illustrate, and a few Jeeps comprise a McIntosh-branded audio machine. One possibility that Bose is brooding about is that it must combine its noise-canceling abilities in electrical vehicles to delight in the vehicle walk quieter, she talked about.
“There are areas on the contemporary time where the Bose label doubtlessly can’t scuttle. Lamborghini is a astronomical instance of that,” Snyder talked about. “You primarily need the very handiest more or much less slicing-edge abilities to be in these luxurious or very best-performing vehicles.”
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