boAt’s phenomenal growth could be attributed to its aggressive marketing, celebrity endorsements and “value for money’ offerings
Driven by new launches in the affordable price segment along with improved features, India’s True Wireless Stereo (TWS) market registered a 68 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth during the second quarter of 2021, as per research firm Counterpoint’s IoT Service. The quarter saw homegrown lifestyle brand boAt maintain its lead for the fourth quarter in a row with a 37 per cent share of the total TWS shipments.
boAt’s phenomenal growth could be attributed to its aggressive marketing, celebrity endorsements and ‘value for money’ offerings, according to Counterpoint.
“Offerings like Airdopes 701, Airdopes 281 Pro and Airdopes 481V2 helped the brand to maintain a dominating position in the Indian TWS market. Pushing the inventory for its popular model Airdopes 131 during Flipkart’s Big Saving Days sale in Q2 was another driver for its growth,” said the report.
Senior Research Analyst Anshika Jain said, “We have seen a phenomenal change in India’s TWS market with the entry of new players and frequent new launches. More than 40 brands have entered this market since 2020. In the next quarter, we will see the entry of more brands (like Nothing Ear, Dizo and Micromax) across price tiers to grab a larger share of this untapped market. Some of the new entrants in Q2 2021 were Lava, Aiwa and TCL. Low-cost offerings have provided the necessary boost to this segment. The share of the INR 1,000-INR 2,000 price band grew to 60 per cent of the overall shipments in Q2 2021 compared to 25 per cent in the same quarter last year.”
On the domestic manufacturing front, Research Associate Anam Padha said, “Players are looking to make these devices locally to reap the benefits of the government’s PLI (Production-Linked Incentive) scheme. For instance, Mivi launched its first Made-in-India TWS device, called DuoPods A25, during the quarter. Mivi is the second brand after pTron to launch a Made-in-India TWS product. boAt has also decided to shift most of its manufacturing base to India to provide more affordable devices. The latest entrant, Aiwa, is also exploring a similar possibility, which indicates that more brands are likely to follow this path to offer new features at low price points.”
Meanwhile, brands like OnePlus and realme are leveraging their existing smartphone user base to grow their presence in the TWS market. The continuous popularity of the Buds Z has helped OnePlus capture the second spot in the growing market. Realme’s affordable launches helped it remain as one of the top 5 brands.
On the other hand, Noise moved one step up to take the fourth spot in this quarter with 117 per cent YoY growth, mainly because it offered a good number of new alternatives to the customers and slightly shifted its product portfolio towards the lower price band of INR 1,000-INR 2,000.
