Sonos lays off 200 employees as its struggles continue

Things at Sonos are getting worse before they get better — if they’re going to get better. Today the company laid off approximately 200 employees, The Verge has learned. The news was announced at around 4PM ET, and a letter to employees from interim CEO Tom Conrad was posted on Sonos’ website. “One thing I’ve observed first hand is that we’ve become mired in too many layers that have made collaboration and decision-making harder than it needs to be,” Conrad wrote. “So across the company today we are reorganizing into flatter, smaller, and more focused teams.”

It’s an even more substantial wave of job cuts than Sonos made back in August, when it let 100 people go. The company remains in an unenviable position, facing cooling demand for its products and a reputation that has been badly tarnished by last year’s app controversy.

The move suggests that interim CEO Tom Conrad sees a need to continue cutting costs as part of Sonos’ ongoing turnaround effort. The Verge has reached out to Sonos spokesperson Erin Pategas for comment. Sonos is scheduled to report its latest quarterly earnings on Thursday afternoon. And if this is the precursor to that, the outlook probably isn’t very good.

Conrad has pledged to continue improving the mobile app after the company carelessly released a major overhaul of the software back in May — long before it was actually ready for Sonos’ customers. The new app was buggy out of the gate and missing many features. Sonos has spent the months since trying to make up for its colossal misstep. But another round of layoffs at the company is likely to be a severe blow to morale for employees who are still doing their best to rectify the mistakes of previous leadership.

After releasing the Arc Ultra soundbar late last year, Sonos’ next planned hardware release is a high-end streaming player that doubles as an HDMI switch.