At a time when companies and the Indian government are looking at ramping up domestic manufacturing, boAt cofounder and chief marketing officer Aman Gupta has said that 70% of the audio device giant’s products are made in India as of 2023.
“Pre-Covid, 0% of our products were made in India. Cut to 2023, and 70% of our products are now made in India,” said Gupta during Inc42’s ‘The D2C Summit 4.0’.
The cofounder was in a conversation with The Moms Co cofounder Mohit Sadaani during a session titled ‘The Rhythm Of Success – How boAt Scaled To Become A $1.4 Bn Audio & Wearable Brand’.
Talking about the manufacturing ecosystem when boAt was in its initial stages, Gupta said there was no support for building audio products in India at that time. Consequently, boAt founders Gupta and Sameer Mehta had to set up a product team based in China to manufacture and import products.
However, Gupta said that the situation is rapidly changing now.
“If you look at how the government is opening up the semiconductor industry in India, how it is pushing efforts on separate parts… Right now, not everything is made in India but, like I always say, Rome was not built in a day. India will take time and everyone’s making efforts,” said Gupta on the outlook for manufacturing in India.
Following the Covid-19 pandemic and the border faceoff between India and China since 2020, boAt has been working on setting up manufacturing facilities in India to bring speed and agility to its supply chain, Gupta said.
Earlier this year, the boAt CMO took to X (then Twitter) to announce that the wearables unicorn manufactured 1 Cr products in India in 2022. This number has reached 1.5 Cr as of June 2023, Gupta said.
boAt manufactures its products in India in partnership with players like Dixon.
In June this year, the D2C electronics brand said its net sales rose to around INR 4,000 Cr (about $500 Mn) during the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), representing a growth of about 39% from INR 2,872.9 Cr in FY22.
Founded in 2015 by Gupta and Mehta, boAt operates in the larger audio and wearables markets and sells products such as headphones, smart watches and speakers. Last year, the startup put its proposed INR 2,000 Cr initial public offering (IPO) on hold and raised INR 500 Cr in funding.
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