Published:
Sonic Innovations Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary
SALT LAKE CITY, April 2, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sonic Innovations,
Inc. (Nasdaq: SNCI) a U.S.-based manufacturer of digital hearing aids, is
celebrating its 10-year anniversary during 2008.
The company is the largest publicly traded U.S.-based hearing aid
manufacturer. More than half of the company's revenue is generated from
outside theUnited States (company revenue for 2007 was $122 million).
"In just 10 years Sonic Innovations has leveraged its world class sound
technology to become one of the largest hearing device manufacturers in the
world. Sonic Innovations was among the first companies to implement digital
technology into hearing aids and is a leader in digital-signal processing,"
noted Sonic Innovations CEO Sam Westover. "We continue to be a pioneer in our
industry through continuous improvements in sound quality, by significantly
decreasing the size of our hearing aids and through the development of new
features that make our hearing devices simple to use and easily adaptable to
the active lifestyle."
Sonic Innovations was founded upon sound technology from three
internationally renowned scientists -- Douglas Chabries, Thomas Stockham Jr.
and Carver Mead -- each with a Ph.D. in engineering. Chabries created
algorithms that led to better speech-understanding in noise. Stockham, known
as the "father of digital recording," developed mathematical methods that are
used today in playing DVDs, processing Hubble space telescope images,
improving medical images and creating better hearing aids. He is the only
electrical engineering professor to be awarded a Grammy, an Emmy and an
Academy Award. Mead is recognized as the father of large-scale integrated
circuits. He has been involved in the start-up of over 20 different
companies, including Intel.
In 1998, the company developed its first product, the Natura(R) hearing
aid. (The name was derived from the fact that so many subjects in the field
trials repeatedly said how natural the hearing aid sounded.) Natura(R) was
one of the first digital hearing aids in the marketplace.
Westover noted that before the development of digital hearing aids, analog
technology did not allow clinicians to maximize benefit for every patient's
unique listening needs. In the simplest of terms, digital technology gives
clinicians very fine frequency and volume adjustments, and access to tools
that can control background noise while amplifying speech.
Since 1998, Sonic Innovations has developed several different digital
product lines with a wide variety of features. Sonic Innovations will
introduce two new hearing aids, representing a fourth generation of
technological advancements, in April at the American Academy of Audiology
Conference in Charlotte, N.C.
Sonic Innovations is headquartered inSalt Lake City, Utah, and has nearly
700 employees worldwide. Sonic distributes hearing aids in 25 countries, and
has offices inCanada,Australia,Germany,Netherlands,Denmark,United
Kingdom,Austria andSwitzerland.
About Sonic Innovations
Sonic Innovations, Inc. is the largest, publicly traded U.S.-based hearing
aid manufacturer. The company was founded with a mission to commercialize a
unique digital signal processing platform for hearing aids. Sonic Innovations
hearing aids were among the first of their kind clinically proven to increase
speech understanding in noise for the hearing impaired. Sonic Innovations,
headquartered inSalt Lake City, is listed on the NASDAQ Global Market System
and can be found online at http://www.sonici.com.
This press release may contain "forward-looking statements" as defined
under securities laws. Actual results may differ materially and adversely
from those described herein depending on a number of factors including, but
not limited to, the following risks: we face aggressive competition in our
business; acquisitions could be difficult to integrate and disrupt our current
business and therefore may harm our operating results; we may poorly operate
newly acquired businesses; we may lose a large customer or suffer a reduction
in orders from a large customer; we must have innovative, technologically
superior products to compete effectively; our products, due to their
complexity, may contain errors or defects that are only discovered after sales
by our customers, thus harming our reputation and business; we may have issues
with intellectual property; and we have important international operations,
which expose us to a variety of risks including government reimbursement, that
could impact sales and operating results. For additional information
regarding the risks inherent in our business, please see "Factors That May
Affect Future Performance" included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the
year ended December 31, 2007, as filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
We undertake no obligation to revise our forward-looking statements to
reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise.
SOURCE Sonic Innovations, Inc.
Copyright © 2008, PRNewswire
Copyright © 2008, NewsBlaze,
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