Why Sonos Shares Surged Friday After Hours

Smart speaker and sound accessory company Sonos Inc SONO was one of the top gainers after hours Friday. Here’s why shares of Sonos were surging late Friday.

What Happened: A ruling by U.S. International Trade Commission Judge Charles Bullock showed that tech giant Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL infringed on five patents owned by Sonos, Bloomberg reported.

The ruling puts Sonos one step closer in a global battle against Google that could keep several products from reaching the U.S. market.

The full decision by the judge will not be publicly available until both sides in the case get a chance to redact confidential information.

Items like smart home devices, phones and laptops could be among those that infringe on the patents according to the report.

Related Link: Google Unveils New Chromecast, Pixel Phones And Smart Speaker

Why It’s Important: The potential win comes as it was revealed that Sonos might be working on its own voice assistant to take on Google and shut the company out of its future products.

A customer survey sought consumer feedback on the interest of such a device as a “potential new product offering” from Sonos.

“We regularly put product and experience concepts in front of our customers to better understand what is important to them,” Sonos told The Verge.

Sonos acquired Snips, an artificial intelligence voice-platform company in 2019.

The survey of the potential voice assistant highlighted compatibility with Amazon.com Inc AMZN Alexa device but did not mention Google Assistant.

A new device could distance Sonos from working with Google even further after their very public falling out that is now in a legal battle.

Last week, Sonos reported third quarter revenue of $378.7 million, up 52% year-over-year. The total beat a street estimate of $313.6 million.

Third quarter earnings per share were 27 cents versus a loss of 11 cents in the previous year’s period.

Sonos raised its full year guidance to a range of $1.695 billion to $1.71 billion in revenue and said it is ahead of long-term fiscal 2024 targets.

Price Action: Shares of Sonos were up 12% to $42.60 in after-hours trading Friday.