According to Marshall’s new CEO Jeremy de Maillard, actual guitar amplifiers were only a fraction of the company’s earnings back in 2023.
Although a giant in the guitar gear industry, there were a few issues that caused some concerns among the guitar-loving population. Most importantly, the ownership change was something that people worried about as the Swedish company Zound Industries acquired the brand. Together, they merged and morphed into this huge new thing known as the Marshall Group.
In a new interview with Billboard, the former Zound and current Marshall Group CEO Jeremy de Maillard shared a few details about the company’s plans. And, according to him, they’ll retain the same old-school attitude while not entirely focusing on expected genres. He said:
“We think Marshall represents the rock and roll attitude. We don’t think this is about the music genre, we think this is about attitude.”
Is There More to Fancy Words?
Of course, this is the expected corporate upper management lingo to convince us that they’re still rock ‘n’ roll as they ever were. More importantly, the interview and this report reveal a more detailed distribution of the company’s earnings in 2023 and how much their guitar amplifiers actually made.
The total revenue last year was around $380 million or 4 million Swedish Kroner, marking a 29% increase. Meanwhile, the adjusted operating profit was up by 77%, reaching $72 million.
As far as the Marshall Amplification division goes, including its subsidiary brands, the revenue grew by 18%. Maillard also pointed out that, despite being privately owned, the company prefers to share all their earnings data since it “makes us a stronger company.”
Marshall Amps Made Were Only 5% of the Revenue
And now for the most important part. About 25% of the earnings come from headphones. The speakers make up 70% of the 2023 earnings, while amplifiers — a product that Marshall is best known for — made only 5%. The report also adds that “Marshall brand accounts for 98% of the Marshall Group’s revenue, with the remaining 2% coming from Urbanears and Adidas headphones.”
During his chat with Billboard, Maillard said that his plan is to take a noticeably bigger bite of the $100 billion music technology market. As of this moment, their $380 million is less than 1%.
Marshall invested a lot into their UK-based manufacturing facility. This is where the tube-driven amps that we know of are made. There’ll be new updates, including a “direct-to-consumer sales channel.” And, of course, they add that tube-driven amps are here to stay.
However, Maillard also added that Marshall will start getting a lot more serious about their focus on the digital realm. On top of that, he says a lot more other stuff will launch in 2024.
What’s the Future for Marshall?
To be fair, Marshall is in a tight spot. Despite the overall success and the potential to grow their market share, they’re still known as the old family-owned brand. Well, they still partially are — the Marshall family owns 24% of it, and two of the family members have seats in the board.
So, Marshall is expected to make tube-driven amplifiers. Obviously, they can’t conquer a significant portion of the music technology market share by doing just that. At the same time, you might end up losing your old followers while not being able to conquer the market with “lifestyle” products like headphones and Bluetooth speakers.
In other words, they are at risk of becoming what Gibson was in the 2010s. You may not be able to keep making great old-school “boutique”-quality guitar stuff if you’re casting a very wide net.
Additionally, not that long ago, the quality of the newest Marshall tube amps was questioned by Jason Tong of Headfirst Amplification. Taking one of the flagship models in late 2023, Jason noticed a significant hum coming from the transformer. The theory here is that, despite assembling these in the UK, Marshall is using cheaper overseas components.
There was also the issue of Slash going with a new signature Magnatone amp. It turned out that he was not leaving Marshall, but it was still an unexpected thing to see from one of the biggest Marshall users.
Around that time, the new Marshall CEO also shared some very optimistic predictions. In an interview in late 2023, he offered:
“We are in a $100 billion industry. We have less than one percent, and we are Marshall. We can fairly quickly become a $3 billion company, and that will only be three percent.”
“We are one of the very few global iconic brands that is widely known and attached to a certain aspect of culture. It sounds ambitious, but with the brand that we have, I have no concern about us becoming a multibillion-dollar company.”
Photos: Cjp24 (PDB 2022-30, Marshall JVM)
