MTX Audio has kept a low profile for the past two years, but that may be ending soon.
Its parent Mitek Corp. will invest $10 million dollars in MTX, including “hiring people, looking at new technologies and material for our products. There’s a lot going on right now,” said John Ivey, President of MTX and Mitek.
He believes MTX Audio should be a $150 million company by 2027, including OEM and corporate partnerships as well as aftermarket car audio sales.
About a third of MTX’s aftermarket dealers are specialists.
2018 was actually a great year for MTX, said Ivey. Shipments increased 70 percent and sales, 67 percent compared to the year prior.
For 2019, MTX is taking its product line upscale. “There were products in the past two years that met the market needs but we’re moving upscale. Moving out of those product categories and only going after the cream of the crop….I don’t have the time or energy to do ‘me too’ products. If we can’t do something radical and game changing we’re not going to do it,” claimed Ivey during an interview at CES in January.
He continued, “We’re not rushing to market. When we sell it, I’m going to make sure it’s completely right. The last 10 percent of product development makes a good product a great one. I’m a huge fan of intelligent design. If you look at our commercial stuff it includes hundreds of hours in design…”
MTX is currently working on new Jackhammer amplifiers with “true” CEA power ratings, said Ivey.
“When we did the ‘Pimp My Ride’ episodes, it broke our servers. It was amazing the amount of publicity we had on Jackhammer. When we looked at our Google searches with Jackhammer it was one of our most searched amplifiers,” he said. While the company had planned new Jackhammer subwoofers for CES, Ivey said, “I canned the subwoofers, I decided they weren’t the quality I wanted.”
He’s still considering Ethernet speakers for car audio. The company already supplies them for commercial buildings. “I believe they have a space in the automotive world plugged into a powered network.” The network would automatically know there’s a new device plugged in. It could allow features such as auto tune with a microphone placed near the driver.
The company says it recently acquired a large number of engineers from Harman, after Harman closed a plant in Elkhart, IN. Mitek has 87 engineers in all and MTX draws on those resources.
“I’m really excited about the next two years, honestly. I’m lucky I put people in place I’ve hired to run AtlasIED, which allows me the freedom to concentrate on MTX. It’s a portion of Mitek, but no where near where it should be.”
Two years ago Ivey took the helm at MTX’s corporate parent Mitek, as the baton was passed from his father, Mitek founder Loyd Ivey.
The younger Ivey admits he spent the last two years focusing on the AtlasIED division of Mitek, which sells commercial speakers and other electronics to major corporations like Starbucks, McDonald’s, Hilton, Marriott, and Boeing. Over 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies use AtlasIED products.
The next time you are at an airport and hear a flight announcement or someone being paged, chances are it is on AtlasIED equipment.
But as of January 1, Ivey has turned his focus to MTX, he said.
