Ongoing Volume Weakness And Elevated Expenses Will Pressure Returns Through 2025

Key Takeaways

• Enhanced software integration, AI capabilities, and expansion into new product categories strengthen brand loyalty, drive repeat purchases, and support sustained growth and margins.
  
• Cost restructuring and targeted international market expansion improve profitability and diversify revenue, reducing exposure to industry cycles and market volatility.
  
• Tariff-driven cost pressures, delayed hardware releases, and constrained investment in innovation heighten risks of demand erosion, margin compression, and long-term market share loss.

Catalysts

Designs, develops, manufactures, and sells audio products and services in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific.

• Sonos's ongoing platform evolution-where new hardware products compound in value via frequent software enhancements, particularly with integration of AI capabilities-positions the brand for higher household penetration and stickier, more valuable customer relationships, supporting long-term revenue growth and increased gross margins.
  
• Rising global streaming content consumption and the normalization of connected devices in homes create a powerful demand environment for Sonos's multi-room, high-fidelity audio ecosystem; this trend, combined with Sonos's category leadership and growing install base, should drive higher attach rates and repurchase cycles, directly benefiting topline growth.
  
• Reinvestment in international expansion, especially into underpenetrated growth markets, leverages rising global disposable incomes and a widening customer base seeking premium home experiences, which can lift average selling prices and broaden Sonos's revenue streams.
  
• Sonos's structural cost base transformation-driven by reorganization and substantial operating expense reductions-is creating a pathway for sustainable margin expansion and stronger earnings even during weak industry cycles, with full realization of these savings expected in FY26.
  
• Ongoing diversification into new product categories (such as headphones and enhanced home theater), coupled with growing focus on software-enabled functionality and future recurring services, is expected to reduce revenue volatility and cyclicality, supporting both topline growth and higher net margins over the medium to long term.

Sonos Future Earnings and Revenue Growth

Assumptions

• Analysts are assuming Sonos's revenue will grow by 5.0% annually over the next 3 years.
• Analysts are not forecasting that Sonos will become profitable in next 3 years. To represent the Analyst Price Target as a Future PE Valuation we will estimate Sonos's profit margin will increase from -5.4% to the average US Consumer Durables industry of 7.4% in 3 years.
• If Sonos's profit margin were to converge on the industry average, you could expect earnings to reach $120.2 million (and earnings per share of $1.02) by about September 2028, up from $-76.4 million today.
• In order for the above numbers to justify the analysts price target, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 16.9x on those 2028 earnings, up from -22.3x today. This future PE is greater than the current PE for the US Consumer Durables industry at 11.4x.
• Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to decline by 0.73% per year for the next 3 years.
• To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 8.2%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

Sonos Future Earnings Per Share Growth

Risks

• The near-term and possibly persistent headwind from increased tariffs (20% for Vietnam, 19% for Malaysia), with Sonos now manufacturing nearly all U.S. inventory in these countries, will force price increases that may erode demand or require Sonos to absorb costs, pressuring both revenue growth and gross margins.
  
• Sonos's strategy is currently reliant on improving existing hardware via software during a "lull in new hardware releases," with the next significant hardware cycle not expected until the second half of 2026, heightening the risk of losing momentum and market share in a rapidly innovating, competitive industry, impacting revenue and long-term earnings potential.
  
• The company is facing a cyclical downturn in the home audio/electronics category, driven by weak housing data and lingering post-COVID demand pull-in; a prolonged or deeper downturn could further pressure core revenue and delay recovery in earnings.
  
• Although cost reductions have boosted recent EBITDA, declines in research and development (down 17% YoY) and sales & marketing spend may constrain long-term innovation and brand visibility, posing risks to sustainable revenue growth and future gross margin expansion.
  
• Sonos's exposure to competitive threats from "commodity experiences" (tech giants and low-cost rivals) and the uncertainty around consumer elasticity to price increases, combined with a still-limited product and geographic diversification, leave the company vulnerable to market share erosion and revenue volatility as consumer behavior shifts.

Valuation

• The analysts have a consensus price target of $13.625 for Sonos based on their expectations of its future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors. However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of $17.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just $11.0.
• In order for you to agree with the analyst's consensus, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be $1.6 billion, earnings will come to $120.2 million, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 16.9x, assuming you use a discount rate of 8.2%.
• Given the current share price of $14.07, the analyst price target of $13.62 is 3.3% lower. The relatively low difference between the current share price and the analyst consensus price target indicates that they believe on average, the company is fairly priced.
• We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.