Things are apparently a lot more together for Masimo online. Their website structure has settled down since their cyberattack at the end of April brought down their websites, then by 6 and 13 May, a confusing and partial restoration [TTA 7 May]:
- A new Masimo site at https://www.masimo.com/ that leads with Professional Health with a tab at the top for Consumer Health. Professional Health opens a series of sub-tabs leading with Technology and Products. A tab for Masimo Audio does not appear unless you open Consumer Health, leading to pages for their brands Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, and others. A new feature is at the top right with a dropdown for multiple languages/countries, including English and French for Canada, UK English, French, Spanish, and German. The footer is where the detail is for customer support, legal, investors, and internal links to pages–but not Audio. One drawback this Editor sees is that once on the foreign sites, you are unable to return to the US English website as the dropdown does not link back to the US.
- Entering masimo.com still redirects you to the Canadian shop domain and pages that feature the pulse oximetry device and app (SafetyNet Alert) monitoring prescribed opioid usage for difficulties in breathing (respiratory depression). Clicking on support features only ‘hearables’ and opioid safety–an educated guess is that this supports a specific Canadian initiative and is maintained for that only. Clicking on the tabs above will lead you to the new masimo.ca website pages which have no mentions or links back to opioid information.
The investigation into the cyberattack that brought all Masimo IT systems down is ongoing. What is not known is 1) the type of the attack, 2) acknowledgement of the extent of the attack, and 3) any lasting damage to their internal systems, databases, and manufacturing systems. This Editor will be waiting to see if the new Masimo will be transparent with customers, investors, and the press as to what happened, the remediation of their systems, and securing their IT. Customers will need reassurance that their continuous monitoring and patient-worn monitoring devices are secure. Moreover, Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (HHS-OCR) requires reports of data breaches affecting or potentially affecting protected health information (PHI). I will also be waiting to see if their consumer health wearables bounce back and go back on sale (they are currently unavailable)–after winning their fights with Apple, it would be a shame if this investment is abandoned.
More on this in Strata-gee 15 May. More good news–Editor Ted Green is recuperating and back at his desk, if only part-time. He has been invaluable for his inside looks at Masimo’s endless drama over the past few years. Thank you for the hat tip to TTA at the end of this article!
Masimo’s Sound United sale–the good and the not-so. Ted digs deep into the sale of Masimo’s ill-starred Sound United unit. As we reported previously, Samsung’s Harman International unit picked it up for $350 million in cash, a mere one-third of its 2022 purchase price of $1.025 billion–a “shockingly low valuation for such great brands” such as Marantz, Denon, Bowers & Wilkins, Polk, Boston Acoustic, and others. Clearly, a sale was the desire of the new sheriffs running Masimo, Politan Capital, and shareholders, but a 66% haircut is still shocking. The share price rose prior to the annual meeting, but is now lower, likely from the cyberattack and uncertainty around tariffs affecting Masimo’s mainline medical device manufacturing.
Harman is the home of other storied audio brands such as Harman/Kardon, JBL, AKG, Mark Levinson, Arcam, and Revel. While a small part of giant Samsung, it is not puny in revenue, ending their 2025 at $10.2 billion. Because Strata-gee and Ted focus on the audio business, there is an extensive discussion here on how the Sound United brands will fit into the Harman portfolio and whether they will expand Harman’s business which has been rather flat. For Harman, consumer audio is their growth opportunity, from premium audio to headphones, and they just bought a quality group. The downside is that some of the brands collide in their market segments, notably B&W and Revel in the audiophile segment and Denon and Marantz versus ARCAM and JBL in audio video receivers (AVR). Interestingly, their largest segment is automotive electronics: car audio, telematics, and digital cockpits. For a more complete analysis, catch Ted’s Strata-gee article, ‘Temper Your Enthusiasm’, here.
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