Dolby is widely known for enhancing entertainment with its immersive Atmos audio and vibrant Vision video technologies. At the recently concluded Auto Shanghai 2025 event, Neil Shah, Vice President at Counterpoint Research, interviewed Ashim Mathur, Vice President of Marketing, Asia-Pacific, at Dolby, about the company’s expansive role in multimedia. Mathur detailed Dolby’s unique content ecosystem strategy, from content creation and distribution to consumption, to deliver premium experiences. He emphasized Dolby’s close work with content creators and partnerships across diverse devices, including the automotive sector.

The discussion also highlighted Dolby’s commitment to consumer education and building brand awareness, noting the increasing consumer preference for Dolby-enabled devices. Mathur further outlined the company’s vision for future growth by penetrating untapped markets and catering to diverse content landscapes.

The Interview

Key takeaways from the discussion

Three pillars of Dolby’s value chain

•    Content creation: Dolby works closely with content creators, from filmmakers and musicians to game developers and live broadcasters, to ensure they have the right tools, such as Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision.
•    Content distribution: Dolby partners with OTT platforms, set-top box providers and streaming services to ensure that the content transmitted is of high quality and consistent across networks and geographies.
•    Content consumption: Dolby works closely with all the OEMs that make end-consumer devices, including TVs, soundbars, laptops, smartphones and even cars, something that Dolby showcased at the Shanghai Auto Show.

Evolving partnerships, consumer awareness, democratizing Dolby tech

•    While Dolby’s roots lie in the cinema theatre, it has evolved and adapted to TVs and audio devices in the living room, OTT, music streaming, mobile-first ecosystems and now automobiles as well.
•    Dolby is focusing on “familiarity and education” to create awareness among end users to get the best experiences from their Dolby-enabled devices.
•    The company is also focusing on retail enablement for partners to hold live demonstrations to educate consumers.
•    To democratize Dolby tech and reach wider audiences, global and local content scalability remains a challenge. Dolby aims to support content across languages and regions.

Analyst takeaways

•    Dolby has been one of the key technology companies driving premium audio-video experiences across multiple devices, with Atmos and Vision technologies being adopted by multiple OEMs, whether in smartphones or cars or cinemas.
•    Dolby’s success lies in working across the ecosystem, right from content creation to distribution to consumption. This allows content producers and devices to offer the best-in-class multimedia experience, from surround sound 360 to multiple channel outputs in audio to richer colors, contrast and resolutions in video.
•    Dolby has higher penetration and stronger adoption in cinemas, TVs, smartphones, tablets and headphones. It is now quickly expanding into automobiles.
•    We are seeing this adoption in vehicles in highly innovative markets such as China, where both OEMs and consumers are looking for premium infotainment experiences. According to our research, in such a demanding market, Dolby’s brand awareness is the highest and Dolby technology integration is one of the key purchase drivers when buying a new car.
•    Overall, we see significant momentum for the company across categories and countries. The company still has its work cut out as the “premiumization” trend has just gotten started and it will need to innovate further to help OEMs differentiate in the future, maybe with tiered features and experiences on top of democratizing the core technology and experience.