Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

When Sonos unveiled its first connected speakers over 10 years ago, it may have seemed a bit gutsy. At the time, the idea that Wi-Fi would blanket every home and serve as reliable way to pipe music from room to room wasn't necessarily a given. But having checked off its first big bet as a safe one, the company is ready to roll the dice on another unconventional idea: The music industry is about to explode again. And increasingly, it's betting, music will be even more integrated into our everyday lives.

This isn't to say that record labels will see their profits return to pre-Napster levels—Indeed the entire structure of the music industry is fractured across many more players now—but according to Sonos's chief marketing officer Joy Howard, the rise of paid subscription services will lead to a new phase of the music industry. And the streaming boom is only just getting started.

"In the first six months of this year, the number of paid subscriptions have doubled," Howard said at a session hosted by Fast Company as part of its 2016 Innovation Festival in New York City. "That’s the fastest that they’ve ever grown. Now people are saying that in the next 15 years, the music industry will double in size across the entire ecosystem."...