The start-up economy maintained its growth in 2024: Varun Gupta

As we conclude another year, it is essential to reflect on the key developments, challenges, and achievements that have shaped different sectors throughout the past 12 months. The year 2024 has been marked by dynamic shifts, rapid innovation, and the continued adaptation to both external factors and emerging trends.

Adgully’s annual feature – REWIND – revisits different sectors and identifies the key developments as well gauges the long-term impacts of those developments. We speak to a cross-section of industry leaders to bring a 360-degree view of the industry landscape, the growth trends, financial performance, disruptions, innovations, challenges and more.

In this REWIND 2024 article, Varun Gupta, Co-Founder, BOULT, highlights the key developments in the start-up ecosystem, challenges faced by the smartwatch category in the year gone by, and much more…

Overview of the start-up economy in 2024

If we look at the overall economy, India has been growing while we have seen a slowdown in the GDP growth as compared to what RBI had predicted, irrespective, we are still in a strong position, as per media reports.

The start-up economy in particular has maintained its rise with recognized start-ups rising to 140,803 as of June 2024 as reported by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

Further, we have to be cautious that a lot of impetus has been on manufacturing in the budget, which also means the economy’s emphasis has been on spending and the ROI will only be reaped in the coming years.

Sectoral performance

Overall the smart wearables sector has seen a bit of decline as per the recent industry reports by IDC, while this trend has primarily been seen with the smartwatches and can be attributed to multiple factors.

The initial spike in growth in the smartwatch category was due to a very low base and high adoption rate. While, lower repeat rates in the category compared to other electronic categories have led to a low rate of repurchases, which supports growth for other categories. Additionally, with the sharp decline in the market, companies are also adopting a cautious inventory strategy, limiting product availability. Amoled watches as a category are still growing at a good rate, however, their share in the overall smartwatch category is low.

On the other hand, the earwear category, which includes wireless earbuds, is still growing. Consumers are moving to the TWS segment, which is growing well. Additionally, an improvement in product stability has improved the customer experience, which can be seen through better ratings of products, but lower repeat rates which has stemmed the growth rate.

Key trends and developments

For me, some trends which dominated the market are:

There has been an increasing shift towards devices with AI capabilities and change in the form factor of wearables and I see this continuing for some time.
Companies are looking towards moving to a more connected ecosystem philosophy and diversification has become key to expanding growth
Further, earlier the market was primarily driven by Chinese imports, but now with the Make in India initiative and incentives provided by the government.
Indian brands are pulling the threads and it’s only positive for the overall economy.

Boult’s performance in 2024

We have stayed strong throughout the year; while our smartwatch segment has stayed flat, the earwear category continues to prosper and we are bullish about it.

We have cracked a revenue of over Rs 700 crore and in the coming year, our objective is to go past the Rs 1,000 crore mark. Further, we have been high on product differentiation this year. We have moved from only smart wearables to the home audio, power banks, and auto accessories category, which has started picking up steam for us.

Also Read: Powering the Start-Up Ecosystem – How the East is crafting its own growth story