BoAt

Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta, realized the massive gaps in the audio and wearable market of
India and hence founded boAt with the vision of making fashion meet the world of consumer
electronics.

Five years down the road, boAt has become a crucial part of cultural conversations for the younger
generation, lifestyle influencers, audiophiles, and a lot of many segments. boAt has hence become
an advocate of self-expression, adventurous experiences, and exploration all the way. Driven by a
blazing passion for music and an instinct for innovation, boAt intends to deliver more than just a
product to its community.

Today, boAt is the world's 5th largest wearable brand along with India’s No.1 Earwear brand. This
account is a sneak peek into the feisty world of boAt - its showrunners, hustle, culture and beyond.

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During one of their many explorations, our founders Aman Gupta and Sameer
Mehta discovered that the dopest people of our land were in search of
affordable, durable and ultra fashionable audio products to groove to.

Thus, in 2014, they kickstarted a great voyage in Indian consumer waters.

Aim- self discovery as an Indian
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What is the mission and vision of boAt company?

Boat was founded with the "sole aim of bringing affordable, durable, and more
importantly, 'fashionable' audio products and accessories to millennials",
which can be termed the mission and vision of Boat company.
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%20mission%20and,and%20vision%20of%20Boat%20company.

boAt mainly focuses on customer needs, the customer wants, and their behavioural
patterns. The company made its products affordable and durable for every type of
customer. The brand deeply studied the market and its customers. Thus it collaborated
with cricketers, musicians, fashionistas, and such personalities who were popular
among the target audiences.
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It offers a wide array of services such as headphones, earphones, speakers, travel
chargers & premium cables. The company also designs audio-focused electronic
appliances like wireless speakers, earbuds (Airdopes), wired headphones, home audio
equipment, and a few varieties of mobile phone accessories. This India based startup
has managed to attract customers with its trendy and pocket-friendly products.

The growth of the boat company is mainly driven by its distribution partnerships. Initially,
the company was selling its products and devices on Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and
Jabong. However, recently the company started its retailing at several Croma outlets
and on the official website. The good performance of the products has helped boAt in
achieving the desired growth.

Besides, the celebrities and the cricketers of India have helped the company. The
company is steadily growing and extending its services to millions of ‘boAtheads’.
boAtheads is a term the company uses for all its consumers and brand ambassadors. It
has been only five years since the inception of the boAt company, and yet the company
stands high with more than 800,000 happy customers.

The company aims to satisfy the needs of users and develop products by closely
observing their requirements.

The first-ever product of the company was an indestructible Apple charging-cable and
charger. After the founders sensed its urgency, the product was developed. Over the
past three years, people are increasingly looking for sports and fall-proof headphones.
Following the need, the boAt company launched fall-proof headphones. Along with that,
it also introduced interesting colors for its products.

Variations in the boAt Catalog:

The second product the founders brought was an audio range, which included
earphones. Since Indians love bass, the company named their first earphones as
BassHeads. The organized earphones market was growing at 20-30% annually. In
2018, boAt launched speakers and, in 2019, soundbars and home-audio systems. The
sales of soundbar were expected to hit 200 million to 300 million in 2019.

The company believes that boAt is a lifestyle brand and not a consumer
electronics brand.
boAt company has stuck to online marketing instead of selling the products in retail
stores. It deliberately stayed away from the conventional media such as TV and print.
The founders cited the reason being millennials for selling the products online. The
company majorly runs its campaigns on Facebook and various other social media. It
also uses Celebs’ word-of-mouth as its marketing strategy.
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boAt, in short, has been leveraging its brand with creative, crisp, short and
smart marketing campaigns. Their marketing strategy is very smart. Since
most of the marketing plan includes selling their products online. They have
taken the advantage of grabbing the opportunity to connect with their
audience at the right time and listen to their feedback, which is made possible
through digital platforms.
Another major advantage includes making the target audience remember the
brand by establishing a unique position in their minds by giving them
something valuable; that is experienced with the help of experiential
marketing.

The brand focused on SEO to stand out from the clutter, using this tactic for
better reach in the digital space.

Right from the start, boAt as a brand has been portrayed as a lifestyle brand.
In fact, so much so that the word "lifestyle" is followed on their website.

boAt was founded by Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta. Sameer Mehta owns
Redwood Interactive, which computer gaming peripherals under the brand
RedGear. Aman Gupta, being the CMO who was fascinated by electronics and
gadgets, has also worked at JBL for two years. He has completed his MBA
(Masters in Business) from the Indian School of Business (ISB).
boAt began its journey with being a cable manufacturer and now it has
leveraged its brand into also selling men's grooming products, too. boAt has a
wide range of product categories which includes speakers, wireless
earphones, earphones, smartwatches, home audio devices, mobile
accessories, and more.
boAt is creating a strong position in the market from being the homegrown
product established since 2016. boAt has become a well-known brand now. It
is globally the fifth largest wearable brand and India's number one ear wear
brand.
The brand has headquarters in Delhi India and offices across Delhi and
Mumbai. The size of the company is now 201-500. Falls under the Industry of
manufacturing computers and electronics. ‌Competitor's of boAt include JBL,
Realme, OnePlus, Noise, and Mivi

Timeline
October 28, 2022

BoAt raises a $60,640,000 convertible note from Malabar Investment Advisors and

Warburg Pincus.

June 14, 2021

BoAt Xtend smartwatch with built-in Alexa launching in India soon

April 16, 2021

BoAt raises a $6,676,740 series B round from Qualcomm Ventures.

January 2021

BoAt raises a $100,000,000 series B round from Warburg Pincus.

April 17, 2018

BoAt raises a $900,000 venture round from Fireside Ventures.

November 1, 2013

BoAt was founded by Aman Gupta and Sameer Ash ok Mehta.

BoAt (legal name "Imagine Marketing Services Pvt. Ltd.") is an India-based company
which was incorporated in November 2013.
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According to filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), boAt’s FY2018

revenues grew to Rs 108 crore from only Rs 27 crore in FY2017. That is 3x growth
year on year. The young consumer electronics player claims that it now sells over
6,000 units per day with four units sold every minute. It also adds one boAthead
to its family every three minutes. boAt is now projecting sales of Rs 500 crore
over the next five years.

“We have tried to change the consumer mindset. We don’t sell our products as
electronics only. We sell them as lifestyle accessories. We are trying to portray
that our products can be a part of your everyday fashion.”

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The company reckons that consumer acceptance has grown with audiophiles
more willing to trust boAt products now. This is reflected in the 50 percent growth
in its average ticket size. “It has gone up from Rs 500 to Rs 750. I believe there is
a greater willingness to invest,” Aman states.

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According to a Future Market Insights report, India’s mobile phone accessories

market is estimated to exceed $3.5 billion by 2026. boAt reckons that the massive
growth in online video consumption will be a significant driver of demand in the
near future, attracting a diverse set of customers.
boAt has to contend with not only audio accessories makers, but also phone
manufacturers like Xiaomi, Realme, and others, who have expanded their range of
affordable earphones, wireless earbuds, and portable speakers in a bid to make
India buy more, and more frequently.

Products-
● Wireless Earbuds.
● Wireless Headphones.
● Smart Watches.
● Wired Earphones.
● Wireless Speakers.
● Home Theatre Systems & Soundbars.
● Mobile Accessories.
● TRebel.
boAt, a six-year-old firm that sells headphones, earbuds, and
speakers, held a 37% share of the personal audio products
segment in India in 2020, according to data from market
intelligence firm Kalagato. Chinese brand realme was a very
distant second at 8%.

This marketing strategy resulted in big gains for the company. As

of November 2020, boAt had two million customers and was
selling 14,000-15,000 units daily.

The company is targetting a revenue of Rs1,000 crore ($137

million) by fiscal 2024 (April-March), as compared to Rs500 crore
($69 million) it clocked in fiscal 2019.

There’s much reason for Indians to celebrate boAt’s success,

after all, the company is doing what many Indian brands failed to
succeed at. But there’s a catch.
The brand is Indian, but its products, not so much.

boAt’s products are made through contract manufacturing in

China, which is a reason why they are so affordable.

The Gap In The Market

Ultra-premium (costs ₹15k+) Apple, Bose

Premium (costs ₹10-15k) JBL

Sub-Premium (costs ₹5-10k) Sennheiser

Economy/Affordable (costs ₹1-5k) BoAt, Mivi

Cheap (costs ₹50-500) Imported mostly from

China and Vietnam

So initially, when no brand existed in the economy/affordable

market. Some cheap Chinese products existed, but they were not
up to the mark as the products they were selling were of low
quality & people were not interested in buying them.

BoAt sells various products from wired earphones to wireless

ones, from speakers to headphones & from smartwatches to
trimmers. BoAt lifestyle has a market share of 27.3% in the
earwear category & it is the leading brand in this category.
It earned a revenue of ₹1,531 crores & the profit was around
₹127.1 crores in FY2021. Its earnings grew by 61% from ₹48.85
crores in FY20 to ₹78.6 crores in FY21.

Source: Startuptalky

BoAt focuses on selling wired earphones at the lowest prices

possible. Their products are priced between ₹350 to ₹550 as no
brand sells wired earphones in this price segment.

The company has always created products that have led to

demand-pull, which means they don't have to market its
launched products. It has already become popular owing to its
good quality and low price.
For example, BoAt launched a portable Bluetooth speaker named
‘BoAt Stone’ that became an instant hit as they were selling this
at around ₹2,000 & other competitors of BoAt were selling the
speakers at ₹5,000.

Revenue Breakup of BoAt

Earphones & Headphones ₹947.35 crores

Wireless Speakers ₹297.40 crores

Wired Earphones ₹94.92 crores

Other Accessories & Products ₹172.03 crores

Including Chargers & More

The company is rapidly expanding its product line as they have

gained a good market share in the wearable audio market & now
they are also focusing on personal care & smartwatches.

It has acquired two companies named Tagg & KaHa. KaHa is a

Singapore-based smart wearable IoT(Internet of Things)
development startup. With this acquisition, BoAt can continue
building innovative products.

Tagg digital is an Indian consumer electronics startup founded in

2016 & it deals in smartwatches, earphones, and speakers. It was
a pure bootstrapped company started by Rohit Dhingra, Amitesh
Bharadwaj, and Saurav Prakash & didn’t raise capital to date.
Challenges BoAt Is Facing
Imported Products

Most of the BoAt products are made in China with third-party

manufacturers & in 2020, due to the India-China dispute &
covid-19, the companies are facing many issues in importing the
products from China. So to solve this issue, under the PLI
scheme, they have set up a 50:50 joint venture with Dixon
technologies to manufacture some boAt products in India.

But even this will not resolve the issue in the short term as it is
costly to manufacture in India & even by 2024, around 50% of the
BoAt products will be made in China.

Cutthroat Competition & No After-Warranty Service

There is too much in this space as new-age startups exist, and

even traditional companies are stepping up in this category. The
competitors of BoAt are Mivi, Skullcandy, Noise, pTron, Xiaomi,
Samsung, etc. Also, if a product has issues after the warranty
period expires, even if a customer is ready to pay the extra
money, boAt currently does not offer after-warranty service.

BoAt IPO
Imagine Marketing, the parent company of BoAt filed a DRHP
with SEBI earlier in 2022. The DHRP consists of an issue size of
₹2,000 crores, where it is now expected to seek a valuation of 1.5
- 2 billion dollars this year. IPO will be a mix of fresh stock issues
& an offer for sale. It is expected that Imagine Marketing will IPO
before the end of this year.
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Maharashtra. boAt has a revenue of $96M, and 300 employees. boAt has raised a
total of $236M in funding.

Competitors

The humongous success of Boat is not be gone unrecognized, though the

market was felt saturated, the incoming of Boat has posed as a huge
challenge for the brands listed following:

1. Beats
2. Harman
3. JBL
4. Sennheiser
5. Hammer
6. Mivi
7. Skullcandy
8. Noise
9. pTron

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

● Profitability: Boat manufacturing businesses are able to produce

strong gross margins from the sale of customized boats. They are
able to reduce their development to any given time, and the
barriers to entry for this business are extremely high.
● Leadership: Although it doesn’t take much to start this business,
and entrepreneur looking to start their own boat manufacturing
firm does need to have a substantial amount in of experience in
the marine vessel industry.
● Boat manufacturing is a highly complex business that can
produce very strong gross margins for a qualified owner operator.
 ● Many boat manufacturing companies often maintain strong
relationships with one another in order to have certain aspects of
a boat produced.

Weaknesses

● Economic & Political changes: These businesses are again highly

subject to negative changes in the economy.
● Budget controls: As such, it is imperative that the entrepreneur
develop ways to control all underlying and fixed expenses in
order to ensure that the business can remain profitable even
during recession.

Opportunities

● One of the ways that these businesses readily expand is by

developing a number of preset plans that are used for mass
production.
● Some boat manufacturing companies will license their designs
and plans to other third-party boat manufacturing companies.
● Expansion: Additionally, additional orders can be handled at any
given time via the expansion of the initial facilities.

Threats

● The risk of an economic recession which would crimp the ability

of buyers.
● Heavy Competition: As the competitive range of Boat is very long,
making it a huge threat for Boat as leading to the imbalance of its
market position.

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boAt has raised a total of $177M in funding over 7 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Oct
28, 2022 from a Convertible Note round.

boAt is funded by 6 investors. Warburg Pincus and Malabar Investment Advisors are the most
recent investors.

boAt has acquired 2 organizations. Their most recent acquisition was KaHa Pte on Jan 15, 2022.

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Leadership of BoAt :
Sameer Ashok Mehta and Aman Gupta founded it.
Aman Gupta is the chief marketing officer and co-founder of BoAt.
He was the director of sales at Harman International.
His first entrepreneurial experience was as co-founder and CEO of Advanced
Telemedia Pvt Ltd, which helped launch global brands such as Beats Audio.
Sameer Ashok Mehta is the Co-founder of BoAt.
He had entrepreneurial and executive leadership experience before co-founding
BoAt.

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on

BoAt Core Interest :

Consumer need : They attract particular people at a specific time.
BoAt targets the buyer on the want of their need and wants for the product to excel
in the market.
They focus on the need for the product to target the people at the right time.
Consumer desire : They target a specific audience by focusing on what kind of
product they need.
This can be done by surveying various platforms to identify the need and wants of
people.
After that, they create a product, and then they market it using the tie-ups, ads, and
various more platforms and set a benchmark in that field.
Consumer Behavior Pattern : Seeking the particular want and desire for the product.

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