Indian Institute of Management, Sambalpur

2022-2023

Written Analysis and Communication Project

A Business report analysis

On

Company: BoAt

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

Prof. Sriparna Basu And Shivani Sharma

Group 49
Ganesh Balaji 2022MBA165
Vaishali kumari 2022MBA191
 Index
Introduction 3
The Industry: 3
About BoAt: 3
Product Portfolio of BoAt 4

Objective: 6

Marketing Strategy 7
Target Audience: 7
Product positioning 7

Marketing Mix 8

Business model 10

SWOT Analysis 11

Competitor Analysis 12
Porter's 5 forces Analysis 12

Challenges/ bottlenecks: 13

The way forward 13

References 15

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Introduction

The Industry:
Wearable technology, also commonly referred to as "wearables," is an electronics
category that can be used as daily accessories, have them embedded in clothes,
or even implanted in the user's body. These are intended to be hands-free gadgets
with a variety of useful applications. They have game-changing potential in
medicine and other allied sectors. They derive their power through
microprocessors and have the capability of sending and receiving data through
the Internet.
The expansion of mobile networks facilitated the development of wearable technologies. Fitness
activity trackers were the first significant wearable technology to gain popularity with consumers.
The wristwatch was then transformed into a screen, and more complex mobile apps were added.
Bluetooth headphones, wristbands, and web-enabled glasses also receive data from Wi-Fi
networks. With augmented reality and virtual reality headsets, the gaming industry is introducing
more accessories in wearable technology.

About BoAt:
Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta launched their direct-to-consumer electronics company, boAt, in
2016. Moreover, in 2014, they established Boat's parent business, Imagine Marketing India, with
whom they are closely affiliated. BoAt was founded with a bootstrapped capital of INR 30 lakhs.
The wide variety of products that the firm offers has attracted a large customer base. These
products range from speakers to wireless earbuds and earphones to smartwatches and home audio
devices and smartphone accessories. According to the company's own description, they are a
"lifestyle brand." Customers may obtain the latest and greatest products from them at a price that
won't break the bank.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), boAt ranked fifth in the wearables market by
volume of deliveries and market share in Quarter 1 2022. Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and Huawei
took the first four spots.

BoAt offers an incredible collection of earphones, earbuds, headphones, and audio equipment that
stand out for their great quality, low costs, and world-class designs. Since its inception in 2016,
boAt has been named India's leading earwear audio brand. Through the company, users can
experience both spirit and energy. Boat's primary objective was to give people valuable, long-
lasting, and well-known stylish products.
The narrative of a humble Indian startup's sudden journey to stardom is certainly endearing. They
met numerous conflicts throughout their travels. Despite the hardships, they never gave up hope.
They, too, had humble origins. It grew from its beginnings as a network of connection producers
and sellers. One of its creators, Aman Gupta, was familiar with the gadget sector. He led his small

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group of workers for several years (2007 to 2010). He worked for Citibank from 2003 to 2006
after completing his CA degree. In 2010, he decided to pursue an MBA at ISB Hyderabad. This
was the beginning of his problems with the auditing firm KPMG. Despite the fact that he was there
for a little more than a half-year, it was long enough to leave an impression. The same can be said
of his interest in machinery and technology, which drove him to apply at JBL.
Sameer Mehta is Boat's principal financial backer and chief operations officer. After graduating
from college, Sameer Mehta created and maintained his own company, Redwood Interactive.

Source: Startuptalky Source: IDC Monthly wearable share May,2022

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Product Portfolio of BoAt

Category Products
Airdopes boAt Airdopes 131

True Wireless Wireless Earbuds

boAt Airdopes 121 PRO TRebel Airdopes 601 ANC

Rockerz Wireless boAt Rockerz 235 V2

boAt Rockerz 255 Pro

Bassheads Wired boAt BassHeads 172

TRebel BassHeads 242

Smart Watches boAt Wave Connect

boAt Watch Flash boAt Xtend

Stone Speakers boAt Stone 650

boAt Stone 1200F boAt Stone 1010

boAt Aavante Bar 1150

Home Theatre boAt Aavante Bar 1500N

Systems & Soundbars

Mobile Accessories boAt LTG 500

boAt Micro USB 150 boAt Micro USB 600

Trimmers Misfit TSO Trimmer Misfit T200

Immortal Gaming boAt ImmortallOOOD

Headphones boAt Immortal 1300

Car Accessories boAt 3A Qualcomm 3.0

Turbo Car Charger

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Objective:
To study the go-to market strategy of the company and understand the complexities connected
with expanding in a highly competitive market and how to maintain growth while maximizing
profitability.

GTM strategies foresee the challenges of this competitive sector by correctly identifying the
target market, explaining the product's value proposition, building a marketing plan, and also
developing a sales and distribution channel strategy.

Value Proposition
BoAt recognised the vast gaps in India's audio and wearable markets and launched BoAt with the
objective of bringing fashion and consumer electronics together.

After five years, BoAt has become an important part of cultural dialogues for the millennial
population, social media influencers, audiophiles, and many others. As a result, BoAt has become
an outspoken supporter of self-expression, adventure , and discovery. BoAt aspires to provide
more than simply a product to its community, driven by a strong love of music and an instinct for
innovation.

What is Strategic Marketing Communication:

Strategic Marketing Communication is a communication strategy used by a company to convey

its message or market its product or service through various channels to reach its target customer;
this strategy enables this company to efficiently decide on what to be said, whom to be said and
how to say it, so it reaches target customer.

Multiple channels are present for this:

• online advertising on AdWords, Facebook, etc.,

• offline advertising on print media, billboards, or TV,
• direct marketing,
• personal selling,
• events,
• sponsorships,
• content marketing
• an annual sales promotion

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Why did we choose this method to analyse the company:

We chose this strategy to learn how a start-up with limited capital chooses its communication
strategies to start communication because it builds your company image and awareness among
customers, eventually making your brand name. Being a start-up, you cannot spend like big
companies, hugely on campaigns, big brand ambassadors, etc.

Start-ups need to align brand, budget, and communication with customers.

Marketing Strategy

BoAt's marketing strategy:

“You are plugged into Nirvana”. When you take a boat, you leave everything behind, you plug
into a new zone, says co-founder Aman Gupta. Prior to the brand's revolution, earbuds and
headphones were merely accessories that came with mobile phones. In recent years, demand for
Boat's products has skyrocketed. In order to build a solid customer base, the firm prioritized the
following three market tactics:
● Customer’s Needs
● Customer’s Desires
● Customer’s Behavior Pattern

Target Audience:
From the start, BoAt has been focused on young people who are interested in fitness. All of their
products are made with this audience in mind. They saw that the demand for products that can't be
broken was growing, so they started making them. Plus, they tried to get the attention of their
target audience with different ads.

Product positioning
boAt's marketing strategy has been to pay closer attention to customer needs and build a
relationship with them. The corporation dubbed its loyal consumers 'boAtheads,' and they had
their own community. Any requests for changes to existing items, as well as the introduction of
new products, were met with enthusiastic responses from these devoted boAthead communities.
These customer approaches helped the company's customer base grow.

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Source: Statista Consumer Insights, from 08 October 2021 to 20 September 2022;

Source: Statista Consumer Insights, till November 2022;

Marketing Mix

4P Analysis

Product
When they saw that iPhone charging cords were easily broken owing to low quality, they set out
to solve this problem by manufacturing and marketing replacement cables that were indestructible.
They quickly grew to include a wide variety of earbuds and headphones designed specifically for
use while exercise. This was a very important way to reach young people, especially since fitness
is more important than ever. Making custom commercials or posters that show people working out
or running while wearing BoAt earbuds also helped show how useful the products are.

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Promotion
BoAt's products are only advertised and sold through digital marketing and social media. The
company has avoided advertising on TV and in newspapers. Instead, you might find BoAt ads
where all the young people hang out, like on Facebook and Google.

Pricing
BoAt is not as expensive as high-end brands but also not as cheap as Chinese brands. The company
is in the best place in the market. The price point of a product makes it easier for people to buy it,
and BoAt users can also get big discounts on products. It's popular with most people. And by
focusing on fashion, it attracts the group it wants to reach, which is young people.

People
Getting the brand's target audience right is undoubtedly one of the most essential parts of making
the brand successful.
Thanks to social media, fitness is getting more attention than ever before, and for many people,
audibles are becoming more of a must than a choice. People's habits did start to change because of
the trend. BoAt knew this, so they made things that young people liked.

During the 2019 Lakme fashion week, BoAt teamed up with Masaba Gupta and quietly stopped
being an audio and electronics company to become a lifestyle brand. This makes it different from
other brands like JBL and Skullcandy. It could also help the company keep making products that
are meant to make people's lives easier. Along with earbuds, the company has made a number of
sound bars, speakers, and sound systems over time. Being called a lifestyle brand opens the door
for BoAt to make more of these kinds of things in the near future.

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 Business Model

Key Partners Key Activities Value Propositions

· Local Merchants and · Manufacturing Electronic · Superior Quality at a Reasonable
Brands Devices Cost Making grocery buying more
· Brand Ambassador · Gadgets Development convenient for customers
· Logistics Providers · Supply Chain · Selling electronic products like
· Payment Providers · Customer Service accessories Build e-commerce
· Investors · Software Development marketplace
· Acquisition · Social Media · Empower customers with Tech
· E commerce Platforms · Marketing gadgets in low cost

Key Resources Customer Relationship Cost Structure

· Intellectual Properties · Good Connection with Youth · Marketing and Advertising
and Technologies segment · Merchandise Procurement and
· Online Sales & Delivery · Ease of Use & Accessibility Services
Platforms · Community of Boat users · Technology and Operations
· Delivery Channels Online · Platforms and Apps
· A Network of Local · Discount and Flash sale
Merchants · Customer-Centric App
· Innovation and Research · E-commerce sales
Teams

Channels Customer Segments Revenue Streams

· Digital Marketing · Customers segmented based · Product Sales and Delivery charges
· Word of Mouth on Demography, Youth
· Offline Marketing

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BoAt offers a wide range of devices, from earbuds to smartwatches, from speakers to headphones,
and more. In the ear-wear market, BoAt lifestyle holds a 27.3% share, making it the dominant
brand.

In FY2021, it brought in 1,531 crores in sales and made a profit of about 127.1 crores. Revenue
increased by 61% from 48.85 crores in FY20 to 78.6 crores in FY21.
BoAt is a company that specializes in providing inexpensive wired earphones. Since no other
company offers wired headphones in this price range, their items are priced between 350 and
550.The corporation has never needed to sell its launched products because it has always made
products that caused demand-pull. Because of its high quality and affordable cost, it has quickly
gained in popularity.

As an illustration, BoAt introduced a portable Bluetooth speaker called the "BoAt Stone," which
became an instant hit despite the fact that BoAt's competitors were selling similar products for
around £5,000.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

● Profitability: The selling of customised boats provides boat manufacturers with healthy
profit margins. They can slow down their expansion at any moment, and there are
significant obstacles for new competitors to overcome in this market.
● Although there are few barriers to entry into the boat manufacturing sector, a successful
company venture requires a leader with extensive knowledge and expertise in the field.
● Those who are up to the challenge of boat manufacturing can reap the rewards of large
gross margins while working for themselves in a very complicated industry.
● In order to get various parts of a boat made, the firms that make boats have to keep good
ties with one another.

Weaknesses

● Political and economic instability: these companies are more vulnerable to downturns
in the economy.
● Therefore, it is crucial that the entrepreneur find strategies to keep all fixed and
underlying costs under control to maintain a profit margin through economic
downturns.

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Opportunities

● Companies may grow rapidly by creating standardised templates for their most common
processes.
● Some boat builders may sell licences to other businesses so that they can produce boats
based on their blueprints and designs.
● Expansion: Moreover, by expanding the basic facilities, additional orders may be
processed at any given moment.
● Danger The possibility of a monetary downturn, which would reduce consumers'
spending power.

Threat:

● Boat faces a significant challenge due to the unbalanced nature of the market caused
by the breadth of its competitors' product offerings.

Competitor Analysis

Porter's 5 forces Analysis

Competition Rivalry:
BoAt's main competitor in the speakers and other accessories market is JBL, which has the largest
share of the Indian market. BoAt and JBL's competition is fought with supply chains, data,
business analytics, and an internet front.

Potential for new companies to join the market: BoAt is a pretty new company, so there is a lot
of room for new companies to join the market. Even though BoAt just came out, companies like
MiVi, Noise, etc. are already taking its market share. After BoAt came along, these companies
started to get a bigger share of the Indian market, but they still have a big piece of it.

Power of Suppliers: BoAt has been able to fight against the power of suppliers. Most of the BoAt
suppliers, people say, are from China. We all know that China brags about making things at low
cost. So, we can say that BoAt's products come at a low price.

Power of Customers: BoAt still can't stand up to customer pressure, which could hurt their ability
to make money. Still, compared to competitors like JBL, BoAt's price is very low. BoAt has
improved its supply chain so that its products are available in most places, whether they are in the
country or in the city. This gives customers even more options.

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Threat from Similar Products: Price match is another thing that BoAt has done to make
customers choose them. JBL is a good alternative to BoAt, but BoAt is still growing in the Indian
market even though other brands are showing up.

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) Mostly Imported from China and Vietnam

Challenges/ bottlenecks:
● Constant Innovation:The company faces a challenge to constantly innovate to be able to
retain its millennial customer base while providing quality products at affordable prices.
● Highly Competitive market: There are many new firms in this field, and even established
traditional companies are moving ahead in this category creating even more competition
in the market.
● No Warranty Service: Even if a consumer is willing to pay the extra money if a product
has problems after the warranty period has expired, boAt presently does not provide post-
warranty servicing.
● Imported products: The majority of BoAt products are manufactured in China by third-
party manufacturers, but this has become a problem due to to the India-China dispute and
Covid-19. The firms may have significant challenges in importing products from China
since 2020.

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The way forward
The majority of boAt's business was conducted online, accounting for 60 to 70% of total revenues.
The majority of boAt's offline sales came from the top ten to twenty cities, and the company wanted
to focus on smaller towns and rural areas. Through agreements with retail chains such as Croma,
the company hopes to reach more offline customers.

The company also intended to expand into the international market and extend its range to include
gaming-related devices such as keyboards, mice, and headphones. With the trend of purchasing
headphones along with smartphones on the rise, most smartphone firms have partnered with audio
providers to offer combination bargains on phones and earphones.

Apple has partnered with Beats, while Samsung has partnered with Harman and JBL. Boat has
also been looking for a partnership with smartphone manufacturers to help sell its audio equipment.
In the future, it hopes to supply Indian clients with audio items that use cutting-edge technology,
eliminating the need for them to rely on imported goods.
● To address the issue of importing from China, they have formed a 50:50 joint venture with
Dixon Technologies under a plan to manufacture some boAt products in India. As the
'Make in India' campaign gains strength in the country, the company is enabled to launch
more items quickly and at an affordable cost.
● It is expected that Imagine Marketing will IPO before the end of this year.

Conclusion
Even in a hyper-competitive space of wearable technology in today's age, boAt has managed to
sail through successfully. One of the key reasons for boAt's success was product durability, which,
when paired with competitive price, enabled the company to secure a market share in a market-
driven majorly by international brands. Digital marketing plays an important role in building the
brand. It partnered with Celebs like Kartik Aryan, Jacqueline Fernandes, and Kiara Advani, social
media content creators like Bhuvan Bam, Harsh Beniwal, etc. A major hype was created by
partnering with sports stars like Hardik Pandya, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul.

Limitations

In this study, only aspects that were connected to the strategy marketing communication were
evaluated. The purpose of this study was to present an overview of the strategy marketing
communication that the organisation uses. The material contained in the study pertaining to other
areas may provide a general overview of those topics; however, we did not conduct in-depth
research on other topics. For the purposes of this study, only BoAt was investigated in great detail.
The other companies in the industry and the industry as a whole weren't investigated to the same
extent. The information for this analysis came from a variety of online sources, including online

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articles and websites regarding the company. In this particular investigation, we did not collect
any primary data. In spite of the fact that the data originated from trustworthy websites, the validity
of the study is contingent not only on the correctness of the data but also on the accuracy of the
other information that can be found on the websites that were referenced. Further study can be
done on the communication strategy and Go to marketing strategy of the company.

References

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StartupTalky. Retrieved December 21, 2022, from https://startuptalky.com/boat-marketing-
strategy/

Dugar, M. (2021, February 6). Marketing Strategy of Boat making the sound of success.
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boat-making-the-sound-of-success/

BoAt : Lifestyle Brand’s Full Analysis & Useful Information. (2021, April 20). thedigitalyug.com.
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swot-analysis

and Gaurav Tyagi, J. V. (2022, January 12). boAt revenue crosses Rs 1,500 Cr in FY21; spent
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salaries/

boAt Creates History; Becomes 5th Biggest Wearable Brand in the World. (n.d.). boAt Lifestyle.
Retrieved December 21, 2022, from https://www.boat-lifestyle.com/blogs/news/boat-creates-
history-becomes-5th-biggest-wearable-brand-in-the-world

What is the USP of boAt headphones? (n.d.). Quora. Retrieved December 21, 2022, from
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-USP-of-boAt-headphones

The Success Story & Business Model of BoAt. (n.d.). The Success Story & Business Model of
boAt. Retrieved December 21, 2022, from https://insider.finology.in/entrepreneurship/success-
story-boat

Boat marketing strategy | Boat success story | “#raisethebar.” (2022, August 10). Explore NCR.
Retrieved December 21, 2022, from https://www.explorencr.com/boat-success-story-and-
marketing-strategy

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