Noise Has Cracked the Indian Smartwatch Market. What's the Secret?

Noise has been making a lot of “noise” — sorry, I had to — lately by offering a huge variety of smartwatches at various price points in the India market. It recently launched ColorFit Pro 4 and ColorFit Pro 4 Max flagship smartwatches. And as per a recent report by IDC, Noise was second in the top five wearables brands in India and registered 150 percent year-over-year growth in Q1 2022 with a 10.9 percent market share. Counterpoint Research also placed Noise at top spot in the wearables list in India, due to its value-for-money offerings, emphasis on the Make-in-India scheme, along with adding relevant features to its product portfolio. The home-grown company recently forayed into the smart eyewear category too, with Noise i1.

On this week's episode of Gadgets 360 podcast Orbital, host Akhil Arora and Senior Reviewer Ali Pardiwala speak with Amit Khatri, Noise Co-Founder, who talks about the Indian smartwatch market, customers' buying preferences, manufacturing process, and trends.

When it comes to the smartwatch trends, Khatri says that contrary to Western markets where people are inclined towards health-related features, including sleep analytics and recovery sports, in India people are spending most of the time on watch faces. “Indian consumers are lifestyle consumers, their average age is 27. They spend more time on lifestyle aspects than health ones (of the smartwatches).” One of the probable reasons is the ability to have a watch that changes its look every day if you choose.

On the pricing part, Khatri claims that even though Indian consumers are value conscious, price is not always the factor for selling a product in the market. They know what is the right price to buy. He says that Noise's constant communication with the consumers gives it a headstart in understanding where the market is heading and accordingly make products. “As a brand, we keep on working on the components in a way that fits the right price point,” Khatri said.

On manufacturing in India, Khatri says that currently about 20–25 percent of a Noise smartwatch is made in India. Currently, its components come from countries like China, Vietnam, and the US. He says that Noise wants to fully make its wearables in India, but that could take some time due to unavailability of resources. He also touched upon the ‘newly-incubated' Noise Labs whose aim is to bring innovation.

You can listen to all of that in detail and more in our episode by hitting the play button on the Spotify player embedded above.

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