Crossbeats was launched in 2015 and today it is one of India’s fastest-growing premium audio and wearable brands. Crossbeats products are engineered to suit the modern lifestyle of young and vibrant Indians who seek premium features at an affordable price. The brand whose journey began with wireless earphones and after taking the audio space by storm, Crossbeats has also forayed into the smartwatch segment.
We as a nation today have become more aware of our physical and mental fitness and India’s smartwatch market is in a boom phase as more and more people are trying out smartwatches because of the affordability factor and smart features provided by the brands. Smartwatches are now replacing traditional watches and complementing smartphone usage as well. Domestic brands are playing a pivotal role in making them accessible by introducing relevant functionality and fitness tracking functions at lower price points. Also, the pandemic has reinforced the importance of fitness in our life. The motivation of staying fit and leading a healthy lifestyle is now forcing users to upgrade to more sophisticated wearable devices with greater expectations around improved health tracking.
India’s wearable’s market grew by 93.8% year-over-year (YoY) in 3Q21 (July-Sept), shipping 23.8 million units, according to the recent data from the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) India Monthly Wearable Device Tracker.
Abhinav Agarwal – Founder – Crossbeats in an exclusive chat with us on the company’s journey, the smartwatch market in India and much more.
Crossbeats was launched in 2015. How has the journey been? What were the challenges?
When we launched Crossbeats, the market mostly comprised of either expensive imported products or sporadic products by Indian brands that were not at par in terms of quality. Since its inception, Crossbeats has ensured that our products meet the global quality standard at an intersection between lifestyle and technology. Our products are design-centric with advanced technology, clean aesthetics and user-friendly features. We have evolved by keeping ourselves completely in sync with latest movements in fashion, music and art. Crossbeats was the first in the country to introduce wireless earphone while we are also among the few home-grown brands that offer Bluetooth calling smartwatch with in-app GPS tracking.
The pandemic has created awareness on health issues and staying fit, your thoughts?
Of course, the pandemic has given a strong push to the realization of keeping tab on health metrics and staying fit. The phenomenal increase in sales of wearables, especially smartwatches, as per data published by IDC and Counterpoint research report endorse the fact that smart devices that allow people to monitor their health parameters like blood oxygen level, blood pressure level, stress level, heart rate are more in demand in the new normal.
Today there are many wearable fitness brands, what is the differentiator and USP between Crossbeats and the other brands?
As mentioned, Crossbeats strives to create the right intersection between lifestyle and technology. While we keep evolving design-wise with each of our product, we ensure that we leverage the latest cutting-edge technology. While you will find many Bluetooth calling watches in the market, you will rarely spot one with an in-built GPS tracking system. Also, while other smartwatches can track heart rate, we engineer our watches to process the data and come up with a stress chart for the users.
Crossbeats is a D2C brand, challenges of being totally online, what are the technology to maintain supply chain challenges and how did you navigate supply chain issues during the pandemic?
The pandemic, we all know, brought the complete supply chain to a standstill. The key to navigate through the challenge was our omni-channel digital first approach. We remained in touch with the consumers through our digital presence while we continued to focus on our offline chain. Today, nearly 50% of our sales are registered through our own website, in addition to other e-commerce marketplaces. Besides, since the first lockdown, our offline sales too have been growing significantly.
What are your out-of-the-box marketing initiatives?
We have been trying and experimenting with a lot of different strategies on the social media front. The best to have been worked is the influencer collaborations paired with a standard affiliate program. Seasonal giveaways and engaging 3D product videos also have been a great driving force for the consumers to know the product up front and close.
Also, we do engage with a lot of media agencies who love to review our products and showcase to the consumers the latest offerings in the market.
Are your ad spends skewed towards digital or are you also into traditional mediums to reach out to your customers?
We make optimum use of both digital as well as traditional media. In the wake of the new normal, the focus with regard to marketing has primarily been digital, including Facebook ads, Google ads etc. However, marketing is not our core focus area as we essentially focus on building a strategic communication roadmap to engage with our consumers directly. We reach out to them through different forms of media on a recurrent basis.
Your TG and is it only an urban phenomenon or are you targeting Tier 2& 3 markets also?
The brand primarily caters to the audio, wearable and lifestyle enthusiasts aged between 24 and 36, which encompasses urban centric middle management professionals. With the outbreak of the pandemic though, we are trying to reach out across age groups, owing to its inbuilt health monitoring mechanism. And with regard to geographical reach, we have a customer base across metros, tier 2 as well as tier 3 cities.
Where do you see yourself in the next 3 years? What are your future plans for expanding your business?
In the next three years, we intend to be among the frontrunner among the consumer technology brands. We also envision ourselves as the market leader in the wearable and hearable space.
Crossbeats is working with the mission to help new India discover added fun and aides for an active lifestyle. We have been providing people with choices that can enable them lead such life. In our bouquet, we already have products that compliment active lifestyle. In immediate future, we will add earphone connectivity to our smart watches and we plan to expand the portfolio into other segments to let everyone achieve their lifestyle goals. We would continue to develop innovative, wireless technology to craft superior products that add value.
