Sonos Confirms Layoffs After Poorly Received App Redesign

Back in May, American audio equipment manufacturer Sonos updated its app and it received a lot of criticism from its long-time customers. According to an article from Digital Music News, the update removed many features that have appeared on the app for several years. Some of the features the app removed include the “shuffle all” from the combined library, no more volume numbers, timers and alarms, and lack of EQ control. The unpopularity of the update later influenced Sonos CEO Patrick Spence to apologize and, a few days ago, the company confirmed layoffs affecting about 100 employees.

The Reason Behind Sonos’ Layoffs

The layoffs from Sonos also come while the company continues fixing the effects of the updates that arrived back in May. According to a post from The HR Digest, the multiple bugs, missing features, accessibility issues, and other malfunctions that came from the app’s update disrupted the general workflow of the various departments in the company. On the day of the Sonos layoffs, the 100 employees instantly lost access to their work. This meant that those employees were unaware until later that they were on the layoff list and got the sack by Sonos immediately. The latest layoffs from Sonos are not the first time the company has overseen a situation like this. In 2020, during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it had to let go of 12% of its workforce and then in 2023, it laid off 7% more.

So far, the manufacturer has not laid out a plan that can get the app back going efficiently. The layoffs even prompted Sonos to halt two product launches so that the company could allow the developers more time to fix the app. There are also rumors that the app may return to its old version that many customers liked. CEO Patrick Spence then emphasized a goal towards improving the app to much more qualitative standards. The CEO said, “Continued commitment to the app recovery and delighting our customers remains our priority, and we are confident that today’s actions will not impact our ability to deliver on that promise”.