Noise: Driving Innovations in India’s Smart Gadget Space

At a time when there are a lot of companies vying for the marketshare in India’s smart gadget market – with its uniquely positioned products such as action cameras, smartwatches and fitness trackers, Noise is poised to drive meaningful innovation in the Indian market.

Amit Khatri, Managing Director, Noise interacts with Zia Askari from TelecomDrive.com about the company’s current business strategy and its future plans on bringing more innovative products for Indian customers.

Please introduce yourself and what are your key focus areas today?

We are a brand that started 3.5 years back. We started with Mobile accessories with a vision of getting in better products for the Indian market, we travelled a lot and saw there is a good scope and we aimed at bringing in affordability with these products.

The audience that we cater to primarily falls under 18-24 age bracket following the bracket of 24 – 35 years. Affordable pricing is the key for us, for the combination of advanced technology at affordable prices is what we are here to offer.

What is the product range that you have?

We began with mobile accessories and mobile cases, now we are moving more towards IOT products and gadgets, smart variables play a key role in our product portfolio which are smart watches, they start from Rs.1999 and goes up to Rs.4999, we have 2-3 products in this category. Second line of products that we have our action cameras, the first product that we launched was Noise Play, which performed really well in the market and now we are all set to launch the Noise Play 2. The next category that we have are wireless chargers, which we launched 3 months back. Post Apple coming in with the wireless technology, the category has moved way ahead in that. So, these are the core categories we operate in.

When it comes to the target audience for you who are the people you are targeting for these products?

We are targeting people who want to buy technology but who can afford at a higher price so lets ay action camera where it is synonymous with GoPro but GoPro comes at a price of 25-30k which not everyone can afford. And Indian masses are more towards value-based pricing so our first action camera Noise Play was launched at a price of 4999 for beginners who want to buy the innovative product at affordable price, is the way we position ourselves.

How do differentiate with the other players which are also coming up in the country?

We were recently a part of the IBW festival, a bike fest wherein we partnered for our action cameras. Action cameras are majorly used by bikers, cyclist, adventurers, we took a lot of feedback as to how do they want the product to be and basis that and our own research we came up with Noise play 2 . The other competitors are majorly catering to the worldwide global audience; however, we are focused on the Indian context.

What kind of innovations are you bringing to the market?

Customers here need a value proposition where they want a simple function like external mic and we are coming up with that. We never realized that a lot of bloggers as a community have shifted towards using the action cameras for capturing moments for their respective genres, so there is an immense demand from them for this kind of gadget at an affordable pricing.

What we are trying to do is combine 2-3 cameras to make one a better proposition for our customers and to deliver unique value at an affordable pricing. The idea is to come up with this thing which is effective, efficient yet innovative.

What kind of market size and revenue you have?

To be honest, this market is very niche, it's not really a big market if you talk about but I feel on an average online industry would have a market share of around 4-5k action cameras on a monthly basis, I think this should be the market size for Indian online camera market. And we ship approximately 1500 pieces per month. Given the price point, we are selling and doing really good for ourselves. We have an exclusive partnership with Flipkart and we sell good share from our own website too.

When it comes to the market strategy you are completely focussed on online or you have distribution networks?

We don’t have a distribution network and currently, we are just online. But we are in talks with other offline channel partners, so we intend to go offline soon.

When it comes to offline, do you also have service and support infrastructure, what are your plans for that?

Support Infrastructure we are still building onto it, we are in talks with vendors to build the service center part but as of now we are providing customers  return policy where if there is a defect we will just replace the piece, so that’s how we are supporting, so if there is a problem they can contact us through call centers and it can be replaced.

So where do you get this product from?

We are designing the products in India and getting it manufactured in China. There is product team and design team which sits out in India.

What are your plans to bring more innovation in the market?

We will be expanding this category of action cameras. We will be bringing a camera which is 4k in a months time which will be the next level camera with a slightly higher price point and then we are continuously working towards improving our smartwatch category, we will be bringing in new models, wireless technology is a new add-on, and we will be introducing Alexa speakers soon.

By when can we expect these products?

Every 2 months we keep adding new products. So, it is an ongoing process.

And what is the price point that you have in mind for the 4k camera?

We are testing the price point but we would place it at a price which is half of the existing market, it should not go beyond 15k.

Today what is your customer base and what are your plans to increase this?

Customer base as I said is youngsters from 18 – 35 years of age who wants to buy value for money product. They want something more with lesser money. College going people, working class people - that is the customer base that we have. We are adding more consumers day by day, we are adding more products so that’s how we will touch base and increase our customer base.

Any plans to achieve any number of customers?

As such we don’t have plans. We intend to now take our products to more consumers which means, going offline or trying different mediums for the same.

Do you have any plans to set up your experience centers?

As and when the offline kickstarts, this activity would happen. Experience centres are definitely mandatory in today’s age and time.