Sonos CEO Patrick Spence spoke with Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Brian Sozzi on Opening Bid about how geopolitical developments will affect the company's manufacturing overseas. As the company prepared after the previous administration, he said, “we've globalized our production” this time around.
Check out the full interview here.
Video Transcript
We've talked before about towers and how the economic situation will impact companies like Sonos.
I mention them here because they are true.
So, I had the opportunity to speak with President Biden recently and he really pushed for me and the AL Finance team.
But that came after new tariffs on China, new tariffs, and news about semiconductors.
Everything is EV.
Meanwhile, President Trump has hinted at the possibility of imposing a 10% tariff across the board.
Which policy is that?
I mean, how does this impact your business?
Well, you and I had a lot of conversations during the previous administration when the tariffs were put in place and then all of the manufacturing was shifting to China.
What we have actually done is globalize our production.
So, you know, we still have a team running in China and producing some products.
But the products coming into the United States are not made in China.
These are manufactured in other parts of Southeast Asia, and many consumer electronics manufacturers are probably doing similar things, so I don't think it will have the same impact, but I would say that in some ways it will impact innovation and profitability in the sense that there are trade-offs when companies have to spend time on these things.
It takes away from other things.
That comes ahead of Sonos' CEO election.
Do you meet with your team and say, “If we have to raise prices, what is our elasticity?”
Are those conversations still happening?
absolutely.
We are constantly monitoring the situation to understand how geopolitical factors may affect our business.
