Monster Inc.: Америкалық электроника өндіруші компаниясы

American consumer electronics manufacturing company

Monster Inc. is an American company that manufactures and markets about 6,000 products, but is best known for audio and video cables. It also produces speakers, headphones, power strips, mobile accessories and audio devices for automobiles. The company was founded by an audiophile and engineer, Noel Lee, in 1979 by experimenting with different ways to build audio cables. It grew by doing demonstrations to convince the industry that audio cables made a difference in audio quality and by establishing relationships with retailers that were attracted to the cable's profit margins. Over the years it created new divisions like Monster Music, Monster Game, Monster Mobile, Monster Photo and Monster Power. In the 2000s, Monster had legal trademark disputes regarding other companies or products that have "Monster" in their name, such as Monster. com and the Pixar film Monsters, Inc. Monster said it needed to defend its premium brand, while critics said it was pursuing litigation against companies that did not have confusingly similar products. It began manufacturing headphones in a partnership with Dr. Dre in 2008, which ended in 2012, and it created other celebrity branded or Monster branded headphone products. Tests done by audiophile publications, news reporters and academics reached conflicting conclusions on whether more expensive audio or video cables like those from Monster make a difference in audio or video quality when compared to generic cables. Instead of advertising, Monster offers incentives to retailers and their salespeople to sell the cables. Retailers bundle high profit margin cables with larger purchases that have smaller margins in order to improve profitability.

Monster was founded in 1979 by Noel Lee as Monster Cable Products. Lee, an audiophile and engineer, was experimenting with different copper qualities, wire constructs and winding methods of audio cables in his family's garage and comparing them while listening to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. He became convinced that audio cables could be engineered to improve audio quality by conducting electricity more efficiently. Monster's first cables were manufactured by Lee by hand and sold door to door. Monster is credited with creating the market for high end audio cables in the 1980s through Lee's "marketing prowess". Monster re entered the auto audio market in the early 1990s with a new line of speaker cables and its first speaker product, the Persona One. $3 million of it was given to the football team and the other $3 million to the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. Critics of local politician Matt Gonzales said it was inappropriate for the city to sell the name of a public facility to a corporation, and a ballot was passed ensuring that the name of the park reverted to Candlestick Park in 2008. In 2012, the company changed its name from "Monster Cable Products" to "Monster Inc.". Following the collapse of the Beats deal with Apple, Monster has sought a new sales strategy, forgoing traditional retail chains in favor of experiential sales at non traditional spaces. Company founder Lee said [We're looking at] “alternative venues – like Barclays’ Center, stadiums where players can wear the headphone when they go in, and talk about how great the headphones sound. [We can] bring great sounding music to a sports venue. We’re looking at cruise ships, stadiums, EDM concerts." Monster changed their business model from selling high end audiophile products to licensing their name starting in 2018. After years of sales declines, Kevin Lee (son of Noel Lee) took the helm. As of 2021, their work force was down to less than 10 people from a height during the Beats days with over 850 globally.

As of 2004, Monster owned about 300 trademarks, 70 of which are related to the word "Monster". Most lawsuits were settled with non disclosed terms. lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company for products related to the film Monsters, Inc.,

Monster established a partnership with rap mogul Dr. Dre and Interscope Records in 2007 to design and manufacture the Beats Electronics line of headphones called "Beats by Dr. Dre". In 2010, Monster began developing a series of products for the Chinese market that were co branded with basketball player Yao Ming. According to analyst firm NPD Group, the Beats brand that Monster distributed exclusively grew to own 53 percent of a $1 billion headphones market. A 51 percent interest in Beats was sold to HTC in August 2011. At the end of the five year agreement between Monster and Dr. Dre in 2012, Dre decided not to renew. According to Bloomberg, both parties said the separation was "amicable" but they had disagreements on who deserves credit and the share of revenues. The partnership was responsible for a substantial portion of Monster's revenues. After the split, Monster created its own headphones product line and other celebrity branded headphones with music groups Earth, Wind & Fire and Miles Davis. Citing a new sales strategy connects Monster to the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and was signed June 20, 2017, bringing controversial figure Fred Khalilian to the company as the new COO. The gambling site PokerTribe. com will launch on or before December 15, 2017, Khalilian said. The company is best known for its speaker cable. including a lower cost HDMI Basic and HDMI cables with five different speed ratings. It also produces cables intended for specific gaming consoles and Apple products. Monster began manufacturing and marketing USB and Ethernet cables as well as power strips and power management products in 2009. It's been producing its own line of headphones since 2012 and also manufactures celebrity branded headphones. Monster sells speakers under the Clarity and Katana brands and mobile accessories like an iPod dock and a line up of Tron branded products. In the 2000s, it entered into markets for "lifestyle products" like amplifiers, speakers and furniture with electronics built in, as well as wireless products.

Tests by Stereo Review Magazine in 1983 concluded that Monster cables did not make a difference in the sound and were "indistinguishable" from 16 gauge lamp cord. Whether someone claims they can hear the difference varies from person to person. Many reporters and audiophiles have done double blind A/B listening tests and are unable to hear the difference. According to PC Magazine, Monster is "often accused of selling over priced cables that you can buy elsewhere for a fraction of the price". Many reviewers stress that Monster HDMI cables are not needed for lower resolution televisions or over short distances and that the difference in audio quality is not substantial enough.

Monster Cable and similar "boutique" cables are a substantial source of revenue for retailers of electronics, such as DVD players and TVs. While the profit margins of DVD players and TVs may be low, the profit margins of Monster Cables and similar products provide supplemental revenue for these retailers. Employees of such retailers are trained to market and bundle Monster Cable and similar products in order to increase profitability. According to The New York Times, profit margins for retailers can be 40 percent or more This has led to criticisms that sales staff are motivated to sell high end cable products to customers that don't need them and to be aggressive in order to obtain incentives. Monster also hosts its Retailer Awards at CES each year, which the Las Vegas Sun called, "one of the biggest events on the CES party circuit".