Bose Acquires Skullcandy, Keeping the Park City Brand Separate Within Premium Consumer Audio

Bose will keep Skullcandy based in Park City, Utah, as a standalone company inside its Premium Consumer Audio division, the audio giant announced Wednesday. The deal follows a year of collaboration through Bose's Sound by Bose licensing program, under which Skullcandy designs headphones and Bose handles the audio engineering. That partnership produced the Skullcandy Method 360 ANC earbuds in 2025 and the Crusher 1080 ANC headphones in July. Skullcandy CEO Brian Garofalow told WIRED in July that the 23-year-old company excels at building community and culture, particularly around board sports — its first product was designed on a ski chairlift — while conceding it was not "the greatest at the engineering part of innovation with products." Bose CEO Lila Snyder said the appeal lies in a brand with meaning for consumers Bose otherwise does not reach, citing the 2024 acquisition of McIntosh Group, owner of McIntosh Laboratory and Sonus Faber, as a comparable move. Snyder described Park City as the epicenter of board sports culture and said Bose has no plans to relocate Skullcandy. Skullcandy's lower price points also let Bose compete at both ends of the market. WIRED rated the Method 360 ANC earbuds an 8/10 for sound and noise cancellation at their price, and Snyder called the earbuds and Crusher collaboration "the beginning of what we think we can do together."