Sonos has laid off around 100 employees on Wednesday, according to<\/a> The Verge<\/em>. Workers from the company\u2019s marketing department allegedly bore the brunt of the hit. The cuts come as Sonos tries to simultaneously sell the public on its new Ace headphones<\/a> and fix the rebuilt Sonos mobile app<\/a>, which CEO Patrick Spence admitted was the result of his push for development speed.<\/p>\n The company confirmed the layoffs to The Verge<\/em>. \u201cWe made the difficult decision to say goodbye to approximately 100 team members representing 6 percent of the company,\u201d Spence said in a statement. The company is also reportedly \u201cwinding down\u201d some customer support offices, including one in Amsterdam scheduled for shutdown later this year. Sonos\u2019 LinkedIn page reports<\/a> 1,800 employees worldwide, and the six-percent figure quoted in the statement would put it at about 1,650 workers. The company\u2019s last layoffs, in June 2023, slashed seven percent of its workforce<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although Engadget\u2019s review<\/a> was largely impressed with the company\u2019s new Ace headphones, the app complaints largely overshadowed the highly anticipated hardware launch. Designed to address \u201cperformance and reliability issues\u201d and rebuild the developer platform with \u201cmodern programming languages that will allow us to drive more innovation faster,\u201d the app launch<\/a> has been a debacle. It\u2019s created headaches for the company\u2019s most loyal customers and threatened to drag down the brand as it pushes into new product categories. It even led to the delay of two new products<\/a> that were otherwise ready to roll.<\/p>\n The new Sonos app for Android, iOS and desktop launched in May without core functionality like sleep timers and alarms. Customers reported problems rearranging speakers in different rooms, some only working intermittently and problems completing other basic tasks. Others even said they often couldn\u2019t load the app on the first try.<\/p>\n For a taste of how broken the app is, Spence laid out a timeline<\/a> to repair it in a blog post late last month. July and August were dedicated to improving stability when adding new products and implementing Music Library improvements. An August and September window is reserved for improving volume responsiveness, user interface, stability and error handling. September and October will include tweaks to alarm consistency and reliability, and the restoration of editing playlists and queues. Improvements to settings will also be addressed. (Phew!)<\/em><\/p>\n Today\u2019s announcement wasn\u2019t received well by the company\u2019s Reddit community<\/a>, which has been vocal about the app\u2019s problems since its launch. Some viewed today\u2019s reported layoffs as targeting 100 workers when one high-profile one would\u2019ve done the trick. \u201cI have to say that, I didn\u2019t have both feet in the door to fire Patrick Spence, but any CEO who leaves his employees hung out to dry and then signs the paper that lays them off is a scumbag piece of shit,\u201d u\/teryan2006 wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSince I took over as CEO, one of my particular points of emphasis has been the imperative for Sonos to move faster,\u201d Spence said on a July earnings call. \u201cThat is what led to my promise to deliver at least two new products every year \u2014 a promise we have successfully delivered on. With the app, however, my push for speed backfired.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n