For fiscal year 2022-23, audio brand boAt expects net sales of Rs 4,000 crore.
The firm stated that it is well positioned and capitalised to continue making aggressive investments in establishing itself as the country's premier wearables brand.
Ankush Pandey
boAt, an Indian audio and wearables business, said that it has increased its net revenues to about Rs 4,000 crore ($ 500 million) for FY2022-23. This achievement is the result of its dominant position in India's thriving audio market. The company claims to have taken the lead in the hyper-growth wearables industry. This is fueled by a singular and one-of-a-kind strategy to pursue a software play via its newly acquired KaHa platform. Within its product range, it is also developing a first-of-its-kind health and wellness wearables ecosystem.
"Our commitment to 'Make in India' remains strong, and the rapid pace of our transition to Indian manufacturing, as well as our JV with Dixon Technologies, is evidence of that," said Sameer Mehta, co-founder and CEO of boAt. "Having raised private equity capital over multiple rounds, including from Warburg Pincus, we believe boAt is well positioned and capitalised to continue to make aggressive investments in establishing ourselves as the leading wearables brand in the country, similar to our achievements in the audio category."
For two consecutive fiscal years, FY21 and FY22, the company's size increased by more than twofold. According to media portal Entrackr, the company's earnings fell 20% in FY22 as procurement costs exceeded revenue growth. According to its consolidated annual financial records filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), boAt's income from operations increased 2.2X to Rs 2,873 crore for the fiscal year ended March 2022, compared to Rs 1,314 crore in FY21.
The sale of audio products such as wired earphones, wireless earphones, headphones, speakers, wired headphones, and soundbars accounts for the majority of boAt's income.
Partnerships with top worldwide firms (e.g., Qualcomm - who is also an investor in the company, Dolby, and Dirac) on the audio side have assisted boAt in bringing leading global technology to consumers. This is in addition to its in-house R&D centre, boAt Labs, which has co-engineered next-generation 'hearables' products with worldwide IT firms.
In the wearables area, boAt is adopting a unique approach of heavily investing in its software and in-house app. Its acquisition of KaHa (a wearables technology platform) last year enabled it to develop a home-grown consumer app and features targeted exclusively for Indian customers and use-cases. BoAt hopes to be the only Indian player with an integrated end-to-end stack of hardware and software, as well as a home-grown consumer app, as a result of this approach.
boAt has made major investments in the local Indian manufacturing sector in recent years. The majority of its audio and wearables devices are produced in India by several EMS (electronics manufacturing services). This includes Dixon, with whom boAt has formed a manufacturing joint venture. In FY2023 alone, boAt produced around 15 million goods in India.
