Here's how Amit and Gaurav Khatri are making the right 'Noise'

• In less than 4 years, Noise, a homegrown bootstrapped D2C brand with presence in the smartwearable and hearable segment in India today boasts of being a market leader in the smartwatch category.
• Having witnessed close to 17X growth in the last 30 months, the brand aims to rake in Rs 850 crore net revenue in FY22.
• We speak to co-founders and brothers Amit and Gaurav Khatri about their vision of creating a global connected lifestyle brand that can offer great products at the right prices.

Brothers Amit and Gaurav Khatri founded Noise, a company that sold smartphone covers and accessories back in 2014. However, in 2018, the brand made a pivot and started selling smartwatches and wireless earbuds competing with some of the biggest global players in the market. Today, it has become one of the biggest players in the Indian smartwatch segment.

The brand has registered healthy growth in the past few years. In the last 30 months, it has witnessed a 17X growth and has expanded its presence to over 8000 offline outlets. In fact, a recent Counterpoint report stated that Noise led the market in 2021 with a 27% share and over 278% YoY growth in the smartwatch category. The brand’s portfolio expansion towards lower price points, emphasis on community building, designing products according to preferences backed by a strong consumer database, and new alliances and partnerships helped it become the market leader, the report stated. Four out of the top 10 models in 2021 were from Noise, no mean feat for a homegrown, bootstrapped company.

Market watchers give the credit for the brand’s growth to its diverse and affordable range of products. We wanted to understand what the co-founders feel has led to the growth. According to Gaurav Khatri, it is their deep understanding of what the consumers want and filling the need gap in the market that has helped the brand stand out. Adding to that, Amit said, “As a brand, right from the start, our focus has completely been on our consumers. Being a D2C brand, we were very close to our consumers, constantly talking to them, to understand what their needs were. We knew where the market was headed and that helped us get the right product, design and bring in a lot of innovation.”

The brand has been frugal when it comes to marketing. It has focused more on performance marketing. It has also had some interesting partnerships like the one with Bragi, where Noise said it will exclusively work with Bragi to launch an intelligent range of audio devices powered by the proprietary Bragi OS in India. It also introduced a range of Fitness Trackers in partnership with HRX and associated with SBI Card for the newly launched ‘SBI Card PULSE’ where cardholders will get a Noise ColorFit Pulse Smartwatch as a welcome gift further to the payment of the enrollment fees.

Another way the brand has been building excitement around itself is by roping in brand ambassadors like Taapsee Pannu and Rishabh Pant, a move that has helped the brand get noticed and win more consumer trust swiftly. It has also been actively working on building a community for itself.

“For any new D2C brand, that initial phase of winning trust is always difficult. However, for us, in the last two years, there was a shift where people got a lot of confidence in buying online. And with us getting our brand ambassadors on board, people had a lot of confidence in us,” explained Gaurav.

According to IDC, Noise also led the Wearable Watch market with a 27.0% share in 2021 on the basis of shipments. It also led Q4FY21 to maintain its lead for the seventh quarter in a row. The co-founders shared that they expected to close Rs 850 crore net revenue in FY22. “The segments in which are currently present are still at a growth stage in India. They are growing at about 50% target growth this year. So I think expanding our reach and getting deeper into the category we’re already present in will further fuel our growth,” added Amit.

Amit also shares that he does not want Noise to be an India-centric brand and that it is already testing global markets. “Design, R&D and consumer-centricity are our three key pillars and we will continue to aggressively focus on that to grow our brand,” added Amit.

On what his larger vision for the brand is, Amit said, “Over the years, we have seen many international brands coming in to India. We want to break that clutter and build a global, connected lifestyle brand where we can offer great product and the right pricing.”