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The BOSE display at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.

David A. Grogan | CNBC

Bose Corp. will purchase the McIntosh Group, a deal that will give the Massachusetts-based company control of one of the most storied names in high-end audio.

McIntosh will continue to manufacture the high-end audio equipment it is known for out of its longtime headquarters in Binghamton, New York, Bose CEO Lila Snyder said. The deal also includes Sonus Faber, a company that makes high-end speakers by hand in Italy.

The purchase of the two audio workshops provides Bose access into the high-end luxury audio market, Snyder told CNBC in an interview. 

“There is this opportunity for luxury, where the consumer is more discerning, really interested in the heritage and the story, and that handcrafted nature,” she said.

Snyder, who took over as Bose CEO in 2020, did not provide terms or a price for the deal. McIntosh was previously owned by Highlander Partners, a Dallas-based private equity firm.

McIntosh has been making high-end amplifiers and other audio equipment since 1949, and one of its devices can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Sonus Faber sells a pair of speakers that costs $140,000.

The purchase shows how Bose is navigating an environment where there is more competition in headphones and audio electronics than ever. Bose is privately held and doesn’t share annual revenue, although it had about $3 billion in sales in 2023, according to Forbes. It has about 3,000 employees.

Bose enters the high-end luxury audio market

Luxury audio — defined as products that cost more than $5,000 — grew 12% in 2023 to about $2.8 billion in total sales, according to an estimate from Futuresource Consulting. The deal will allow Bose to test a higher-end market for its products, which are already expensive – a pair of Bose headphones can easily cost $350. 

“These are different customers that right now we’re not really reaching with our technology and with our products,” she said.

Snyder did not rule out the possibility of Bose producing McIntosh-branded headphones or other products.

“We do think there’s a real opportunity around wearables in the luxury and high-performance space as well, which is something that we would expect you to see from us down the road,” Synder said.

Bose is best-known for its speakers and its headphones, including the QuietComfort headphones line, which was one of the first noise-canceling headsets to hit the market in 2000. It also sells soundbars, wireless earbuds, speakers and audio equipment for cars. It divested a group that built sound systems for auditoriums and other professional environments last year.

The audio market has grown since Bose was one of the few high-end brands. 

Bose now competes against some of the biggest companies in the world, including Apple, which bought Beats Electronics for $3 billion in 2014 and released the AirPods in 2016, targeting the premium headphone market.

There is also new audio-focused competition for Bose. 

Sonos, which was best known for its in-home speakers, introduced its first noise-canceling headphones earlier this year, although the company is reeling from an app redesign in May that was received poorly by users. Bose also spent the past decade competing with smart speakers from the likes of Amazon and Google that were often priced aggressively low to spur adoption.

The purchase of the two luxury audio workshops could help Bose grow in the in-car stereo market, which Snyder said makes up about a third of the company’s overall business. Sonus Faber produces speakers for Lamborghini cars, for example, and some Jeeps have a McIntosh-branded audio system. One possibility that Bose is excited about is that it can integrate its noise-canceling technology in electric cars to make the vehicle ride quieter, she said.

“There are places today where the Bose brand probably can’t go. Lamborghini is a great example of that,” Snyder said. “You really want the very best kind of cutting-edge technology to be in those luxury or highest-performing vehicles.”

WATCH: Why the hearing aid industry is poised to grow

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand ‘off the charts,’ says Altimeter’s Gerstner

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand 'off the charts,' says Altimeter's Gerstner

Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.

“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.

President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.

The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.

Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.

Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”

He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.

“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”

WATCH: Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

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YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

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YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

YouTube on Thursday announced new video creation tools for Shorts, its short-form video feed that competes against TikTok. 

The features come at a time when TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is at risk of an effective ban in the U.S. if it’s not sold to an American owner by April 5.

Among the new tools is an updated video editor that allows creators to make precise adjustments and edits, a feature that automatically syncs video cuts to the beat of a song and AI stickers.

The creator tools will become available later this spring, said YouTube, which is owned by Google

Along with the new features, YouTube last week said it was changing the way view counts are tabulated on Shorts. Under the new guidelines, Shorts views will count the number of times the video is played or replayed with no minimum watch time requirement. 

Previously, views were only counted if a video was played for a certain number of seconds. This new tabulation method is similar to how views are counted on TikTok and Meta’s Reels, and will likely inflate view counts.

“We got this feedback from creators that this is what they wanted. It’s a way for them to better understand when their Shorts have been seen,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich said in a YouTube video. “It’s useful for creators who post across multiple platforms.”

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Tech stocks sink after Trump tariff rollout — Apple heads for worst drop in 5 years

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Tech stocks sink after Trump tariff rollout — Apple heads for worst drop in 5 years

CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Via Reuters

Technology stocks plummeted Thursday after President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies sparked widespread market panic.

Apple led the declines among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group, dropping nearly 9%. The iPhone maker makes its devices in China and other Asian countries. The stock is on pace for its steepest drop since 2020.

Other megacaps also felt the pressure. Meta Platforms and Amazon fell more than 7% each, while Nvidia and Tesla slumped more than 5%. Nvidia builds its new chips in Taiwan and relies on Mexico for assembling its artificial intelligence systems. Microsoft and Alphabet both fell about 2%.

Semiconductor stocks also felt the pain, with Marvell Technology, Arm Holdings and Micron Technology falling more than 8% each. Broadcom and Lam Research dropped 6%, while Advanced Micro Devices declined more than 4% Software stocks ServiceNow and Fortinet fell more than 5% each.

Read more CNBC tech news

The drop in technology stocks came amid a broader market selloff spurred by fears of a global trade war after Trump unveiled a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods and a range of higher duties targeting specific countries after the bell Wednesday. He said the new tariffs would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the U.S.

Companies and countries worldwide have already begun responding to the wide-sweeping policy, which included a 34% tariff on China stacked on a previous 20% tax, a 46% duty on Vietnam and a 20% levy on imports from the European Union.

China’s Ministry of Commerce urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the unilateral tariff measures and said it would take “resolute counter-measures.”

The tariffs come on the heels of a rough quarter for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the worst period for the index since 2022. Stocks across the board have come under pressure over concerns of a weakening U.S. economy. The Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 5% on Thursday, bringing its year-to-date loss to 13%.

Trump applauded some megacap technology companies for investing money into the U.S. during his speech, calling attention to Apple’s plan to spend $500 billion over the next four years.

Evercore ISI's Amit Daryanani on keeping Apple's outperform rating despite tariffs

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