Sonos ups the ante in China

In a bid to tap into the enormous potential of the Chinese music market where people are more willing than ever to pay for high-quality music and smart music speakers, wireless home audio brand Sonos has since April 12 made its full line of products available in the country. 

Founded in 2002, the American smart speaker maker offers a wide range of sound products that can be connected to one another via a wireless connection. Being the pioneer in the smart speaker segment, Sonos owns more than 90 percent of the global market share by revenue. 

According to Wang Hanhua, managing director of Sonos China, the company is aiming to become the leading innovator in its industry, just like Apple in the smart phone industry and Tesla in the auto industry. 

"I believe that all speakers will be smart speakers in the future, and smart speakers will have more intelligent functions in the future as a smart home device," he said. 

Wang noted that several Sonos products were already available in China via e-commerce platforms as well as offline retailers four years ago, but it was only in recent times that the company decided it was ready to tackle the China market. He added that one of the deciding factors was the introduction of a guideline by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television late last year. 

The state regulator, which called for the protection of intellectual property rights of music, especially digital music, also pledged to offer more support to help form a complete industrial chain for music creation and music products, as well as raise the total revenue of the music market to 300 billion yuan by 2020. 

Wang said the guideline has been effective as he has noticed much unauthorized music being removed from major streaming platforms. He also added that this improvement to China’s music industry is one of the reasons why Sonos decided to expand its presence in the country. 

Sales from the company’s Tmall flagship store in the first week starting April 12 had already reached half of last year’s total, but Wang said they are not eager to accelerate their expansion. Apart from the existing experience centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Sonos is looking to open its fourth in Shenzhen. 

"Our focus at the moment is on first-tier Chinese cities, because these are the places where our major clients are. Right now in China, branding takes priority over sales revenue," said Wang, who added that the company’s ambition is to make the Chinese market as important as those in North America and Europe. 

While it took Sonos just four years to turn the European market into a half-revenue contributor, Wang said that he was prepared to spend a greater amount of time to realize their goal in China.