Aman Gupta, co-founder, boAt, talks to Forbes about the journey of a homegrown consumer electronics upstart sailing through myriad storms to stand tall as the fifth largest wearable brand in the world.
Back in December 2016, boAt found itself in the middle of the Chinese storm led by Xaomi, Vivo, and Oppo, that was slowly causing major Indian handset players like Micromax to shrink.
€œIndians were getting out. Chinese were coming in, € he recounts. €œPeople started writing our obituary even before we were born, € Aman says.
Not discouraged, the co-founders bootstrapped ‚¹15 lakh each and kickstarted their boAt by selling mobile cables and chargers. The first year itself brought post sales of ‚¹31 crore, and a profit of ‚¹1.67 crore. In the next fiscal, the brand grew close to four times with the addition of wireless earwear and speakers.
Fast forward to December 2020, boAt has overtaken brands like Xiaomi, Realme, JBL, Apple amongst others to rise to the top, according to the research firm - Counterpoint Research. boAt has also become the fifth biggest wearable brand in the world in the third quarter this year.
We have disrupted the space, and we will continue doing that. Now I am looking for another high, another kick € Aman smiles.
Source: Forbes
