The smart-speaker and home-audio tech company Sonos has filed for an initial public offering, with plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol SONO.
The filing was first reported in April. At the time, estimates put the company’s potential market value at between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. Sonos didn’t say how many shares it would look to sell. It set a placeholder amount of $100 million.
The company is on track to produce revenue of more than $1 billion this year, it said. It had revenue of $992.5 million for its most recent fiscal year but reported a net loss of $14.2 million. It was deeper in the red the prior year, recording a loss of $38.2 million.
Sales of smart speakers more than tripled in 2017 as the high-end speaker industry moved more toward smart assistants.
Sonos speakers are compatible with streaming services like Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, and TuneIn. The company released its first voice-enabled speaker, Sonos One (pictured below), last year. Sonos One integrates with Amazon’s Alexa, and the company also has plans to support Apple’s Siri and Google Home.
“Our system is not — and never will be — an entry gate into a walled garden,” Chief Executive Patrick Spence wrote. “We’re deeply committed to keeping Sonos open to every voice assistant, streaming service, and company that wants to build on our platform. This approach is unique in our industry, and it requires substantial investment and long-term thinking.”
Sonos said that as of March 31 it had more than 19 million registered products in nearly 7 million homes globally. More than half its revenue came from outside the U.S. in fiscal 2017. It said its customers listen to 70 hours of content per month.
The private equity firm KKR owns about 26% of the company. Sonos’ founder and former chief executive, John MacFarlane, owns 13%.