Switzerland’s Sonova on Tuesday introduced a hearing aid that uses real-time artificial intelligence to improve speech clarity in environments with ambient noise, the first such product on the global market, sending the company’s shares up 5%.
Along with the hearing aid called Sphere Infinio, Sonova is launching the new Infinio platform.
“The launch of both the platform and the new product will be a surprise to the market, because no one knows about this technology and this benefit (real-time AI), which is quite important, will be available to everyone this year,” CEO Arnd Kaldowski told Reuters in an interview.
“This sounds like a big step forward for Sonova,” Urs Kunz, an analyst at Research Partners AG, said in an email.
Unlike its main rivals – Italy’s Amplifon, Demant and Denmark’s GN Store Nord, all of which warned on profits this summer – Sonova is sticking to its full-year target.
“Our initial impression is that Sonova has launched an exciting product platform that is likely to drive growth in the second half of 2024/25,” Carnegie analyst Niels Granholm-Leth said in a note to clients.
The hearing aid industry is showing signs of market weakness in Europe and the United States, while analysts also point to fierce competition in the market.
“We will need to see how the market develops and how customers respond to the products. But we are comfortable with our full-year guidance even if the market is a little bit slower right now,” Kaldowski said.
Sonova said in a statement that the Sphere Infinio uses new DEEPSONIC chip technology that has 53 times more processing power than the technology currently used by the hearing aid industry.
The company sees Infinio and its existing Lumity platform as key future growth drivers for its hearing aid business, which contributes about half of total sales.
