Skullcandy Company

Founded in 2003 by Rick Alden, Skullcandy has become a famous company. Skullcandy made a difference in headphones industry by producing headphones, which can be used in sports especially skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding. The first idea came from Rick Alden, in 2001. He was riding up a ski lift while his phone rang, he found it difficult to answer the call with such thick clothes and gloves, then he thought that maybe he could produce a kind of headphones that connect to both a cell phone and an MP3 player. In January of 2002 he really did make it. And that was the first product of Skullcandy – “Link”. With a background in the snowboarding industry, Rick Alden aimed at the skateboarders and snowboarders to sell his products.

He recommended headphones and other accessories to skateboard and snowboard store. Soon, Skullcandy and its “Skull” logo became popular during the sports people. Skullcandy grew up very smooth and quickly, in 2007 Rick Alden started to pitched his products to some mass market such as Best Buy, Target and Circuit City. The three guys all accepted Skullcandy and sold them in the U.S stores. In 2011, Skullcandy went public. However, with an unstopped step, Rick Alden, the founder of Skullcandy decided to pursue his new business and left Skullcandy. Soon later, Jeremy Andrus, the CEO after Rick Alden also left Skullcandy, which intensified of people’s concern about Skullcandy, resulting the stock price of Skullcandy fell to $5.73 per share in June of 2013. No one can be sure about what the Skullcandy will be in its future.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths
Weaknesses
Customer Loyalty
Leader’s leave
Good designs and high quality.
Low competitiveness in mass market
Good management and employee rewards

Opportunities
Threats
Pioneer in action-sports headphones market
Heavy competition
Global market
Stock price’s decrease

Skullcandy had a loyal customer base and had pioneered the market for action-sports headphones sold through specialty sports channels. It had a good system inside, and it rewarded employees who performed well. Besides, Skullcandy had a good team role to design new product, which make this company more efficient and competitive. However, in mass market, Skullcandy faced some big companies which produced more traditional headphones, and new entrants. With the founder Rick Alden’s departure, the investors started to concern about the future of Skullcandy.