Mobile App Insights · Kara Lee · January 2025
Sonos’s Bad Beat
Sonos CEO, Patrick Spence, stepped down from the organization last week as the fallout surrounding its botched app launch continues to impact the company. Sensor Tower data shows that negative reviews for the app skyrocketed in response, as 1-star reviews increased by 14x in the eight months after its launch while Sonos saw its percentage of churned users increase (up 2ppts) in 2024 while the rest of the cohort saw a decrease in churned user rates.
Key Takeaways:
The May’24 launch of Sonos’s redesigned app led to a drop in global MAUs, down 4% HoH in 2H24. Though Sonos’s downloads marginally increased in 2H24, up 5% HoH, it grew at a much slower pace as cohort downloads increased 35% HoH amidst the crucial holiday period for the sector
Sonos’s customers flocked to review the app after the redesign was launched, as an outpouring of response drove a 900% increase in app reviews in the 8 months since it was launched vs the prior 8 months, accentuated by the surge of 1-star reviews for the Sonos app, which increased a whopping 14x during the same period
From May’24-Jan’25 MTD, over 80% of the reviews for the Sonos app across the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store were 1-star reviews, up from ~55% during the previous 8 months, highlighting how unfavorably consumers viewed the redesign
Despite the challenging year for Sonos, it kept its US ad spend on par with the previous year, though a material portion of its spend in 2024 was concentrated on its headphone launch, accounting for 45% of spend in 2024, while less than <1% of the company’s US ad spend in 2024 addressed the frustrations of the company’s app with its customers
For more information, request the full report from reports@sensortower.com.
