Titan Company Ltd., a joint venture between The Tata Group and TIDCO, is seeking to invest in the Indian wearable segment. The company is said to be in advance talks to acquire a majority stake in Gurugram-based consumer electronics brand Noise.
The Tata Group-led company seeks to increase its footprint in the booming wearable market with this acquisition. Nexxbase Marketing Pvt. Ltd-owned Noise will be valued at around Rs 700–800 crore as a result of the transaction. According to a Mint report, the valuation is determined by doubling Noise’s revenue of Rs 400 crore, which is common among companies in the wearable market.
Noise, founded in 2014 by Amit Khatri and Gaurav Khatri, started selling smartphone cases before exploring into smart wearables and wireless headphones vertical. According to International Data Corporation (IDC) report, the smart wearable market in India increased by 93.8 percent year on year (YoY) in the third fiscal quarter of FY21 (July-September), shipping 23.8 million units. Smartwatches remain the fastest-growing category, with 4.3 million shipments in Q3, while wristbands had their ninth consecutive quarter of annual drop.
The report also suggests that homegrown brands have taken more than two-thirds of the smartwatch market through aggressive pricing and marketing spending on digital channels. Noise managed to maintain its market share dominance for the sixth consecutive quarter in Q3, with a 26 percent market share, followed by boAt with a 23.1 percent market share.
Titan Company’s shares jumped over 2 percent today after a report suggested the company was in talks to buy a controlling stake in the indigenous wearables maker Noise. Titan’s shares have climbed after a four-day drop. In early trade, the large-cap stock rose 1.91 percent to Rs 2,415 per share. The shares were trading higher than the 200-day moving average but lower than the 5-day, 20-day, 50-day, and 100-day moving averages. The share has increased 63 percent in a year but has dropped 5.42 percent since the beginning of the current year.
The Tata Group, in 2020, acquired Hug Innovations Inc, a Hyderabad-based smart device manufacturer, to focus on the booming wearable market. Noise, a Gurugram-based company, has previously appointed IndigoEdge to assist them to explore new financial investors. According to a report, it targeted to raise over Rs 100 crore in 2020 at a valuation of nearly Rs 500 crore.
boAt, which is eyeing an IPO of Rs 2000 crore, recently picked up Singapore-based KaHa Pte Ltd. (Cove IoT). Imagine Marketing, boAt’s parent firm, has announced that it would acquire Singapore-based KaHa Pte Ltd. BoAt seeks to strengthen its wearable devices with KaHa’s concept, design, algorithm development, electronic firmware, Android & iOS applications, among other features and capabilities as a result of this transaction.