(AllHipHop News) The rapidly-growing headphone market just got some big news at the 2012 International CES Tradeshow over the weekend. Beats By Dre co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine will no longer be working with Monster Cable Products on future endeavors and product lines.
Iovine recently spoke on the separation of the two very successful companies to Billboard.biz: “We had a few business things that you have when you work with a guy for five years. But we’ve grown so fast we have to be nimble, to control our own destiny. It was always structured that way.”
In case you haven’t noticed, in the past few years, headphones have become just the tip of the iceberg for the Beats By Dre brand. The technology can be found in select Hewlett-Packard PC’s and laptops, Chrysler’s 300 S Sedan, the soon to be released 2012 Dodge Charger, and on HTC smartphones. HTC, actually own a 51 percent majority stake in the company after their $300 million investment in Beats last summer.
It is notable that Monster reportedly had nothing to do with the deals struck between Beats and Chrysler, HP, or HTC, and that, according to Iovine, “Beats will act as its own manufacturer going forward,” which is big news in itself. Iovine added, “We are purely on a mission to fix audio for every record company for every artist around the world. We have to turn this thing around and we’re starting to.
“NPD group recently valued Beats as accounting for more than half of the $1 billion headphone market in 2011, which would place their product sales in the $500 million range.” Iovine says the company will focus on staffing up in 2012 while actively talking to other potential partners and device manufacturers,” according to Billboard.biz.
Iovine was asked about a number of the other headphone lines that have been released as of late. Artists like Ludacris, 50 Cent, and RZA, have all worked with companies in the past year to create their own unique brand of headphones.”Some of our competitors are cheap engineers who have never been to a recording studio. You can’t just stick someone’s name on a headphone that doesn’t know anything about sound.”
