“Quietly brilliant” . . . but with a pumpin’ bass
Monday, August 15th, 2011
By Ross Rubin, Executive Director, Industry Analysis
Last week’s news that HTC would purchase a majority stake in Beats Audio represents another step in the company’s quest for differentiation, which is a growing challenge in the Android mobile phone handset space. HTC’s main thrust up to this point has been its Sense “user experience” layer that pours on the visual eye candy. But with music and video playing a bigger role on cell phones, HTC clearly sees an opportunity to improve on the audio experience.
Of course HTC isn’t the first to try to leverage Beats’ audio enhancements to stand out in commoditized markets. Premium cable maker Monster Cable was the first major electronics brand to tap into Beats –and with great success. According to NPD’s Retail Tracking Service, Monster Cable had the highest revenue share of stereo headphones (18 percent) from July 2010 through June 2011 — up from only 2 percent two years ago. The impact of hip-hop legend Dr. Dre, of course, contributed to its success in the audio-centric category. The impact of Beats has been less clear in the fortunes of HP, which has licensed it for PCs. HP, though, has migrated Beats down from its flagship Envy line to other laptops, which signals that the license is proving its value.
HP has also included Beats audio on its recently released webOS-powered TouchPad tablet, which competes with HTC’s Flyer (also sold as the EVO View at Sprint). HTC says Beats will act as an independent subsidiary, and there’s probably no issue with HP continuing to use Beats in its PC products. But even if HP can move forward with Beats in its tablets, it seems less likely that the computing giant will be able to extend that capability to its webOS-based handsets — at least barring an HTC webOS-licensing wild card.
Tags: Audio, Beats Audio, Headphones, HP, HTC, Monster Cable
Consumer Technology, Entertainment | Ross Rubin, Executive Director, Industry Analysis |
August 15, 2011 9:06 am