Founded in 2016, boAT clocked a revenue of Rs 500 crore, a 108.8 percent increase from FY 2019. The co-founders are now setting their sights on building out of India a global audio business. boAt is present in 5,000 retail outlets, sponsored by 20 distributors. The company claims to sell more than 10,000 units a day and four million units a year, and says it has served 20 million Indians so far.
A consumer-first approach is behind the growth of boAt, which has made the start-up one of India’s most sought-after young brands. Nearly 80% of its revenues come from e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart. BoAt was able to learn what other brands did not want to learn, by paying attention to millions of online customer reviews, that Indians loved a product that could be part of their lifestyle.
The boAt is a pun on an individual’s journey to a location where they feel at ease and forget all their troubles. In 2014, the two founders began Imagine Marketing, boAt’s parent company, with Rs 30 lakh raised from family and friends, and designed and launched the first product, boAt BassHeads225, in 2016.
BoAt currently has many influencers, including cricketers such as K L Rahul and Rishabh Pant, icons of fashion, singers, and actors. The company believes the lifestyle segment is only going to expand as young Indians are eating a lot more.
A recent BCG report says that the retail industry in India is $750 billion in size and will be $1 trillion in five years. In 2019, IDC data rated boAt as the leading brand with a 27.3 percent market share in the earwear segment.
According to the Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Product Tracker 4Q19 release of IDC, the overall ‘earwear’ market expanded multi-fold with 443.6 percent during 2019, making it one of the fastest-growing categories of consumer electronics in the country.
In March 2020, to build its team, the company raised Rs 20 crore in venture debt from BAC Acquisitions of Sachin Bansal. Owing to the effects of COVID-19, it is also rethinking its supply chain.
Recently, boAt has raised 25 crores from InnoVen Funds, demonstrating the strategy of the venture debt and specialty lending company to support consumer brands that disrupt their categories.
One of the reasons behind the rapid growth of boAt is maintaining a happy community of their customers. boAt calls its consumers ‘boAthead’. Now, what are ‘boAtheads’? All the millennial buyers who buy any boAt accessory are termed ‘boAthead’ and made a part of the ever-growing clan and going by the number of sales there are many.
