Published: [October 04, 2026]
The Noise journey runs from a Gurugram phone-cover stall in 2014 to the top of India’s smartwatch market in 2026. It is India’s No.1 smartwatch brand, built without venture money for nine years.
StartupFeed Quick Take
- Noise led India’s smartwatch market in 2025 with a 26.6% share, says IDC.
- Revenue fell 24% to Rs 1,048 crore in FY25, from Rs 1,384 crore in FY24.
- Bose has put in $30 million in two rounds since December 2023.
In This Article
How the Noise Journey Started in 2014
The Noise journey began in 2014, when cousins Amit and Gaurav Khatri started selling phone covers in India. Gaurav, a trained commercial pilot, could not find a good iPhone cover at home.
He got one from Hong Kong. That gap became the business. The two set up a cover brand under their company, Nexxbase Marketing Private Limited, based in Gurugram, Haryana.
By 2015 they were a leading seller of phone covers. But covers are easy to copy. Margins are thin and every seller looks the same.
The Khatris saw the trap early. A commodity product with no moat cannot build a lasting brand. They needed something harder to copy, with room to add features and charge more.
The Pivot to Smartwatches That Changed Everything
Around 2016, Noise moved into smart wearables. It launched smartwatches and wireless earphones at prices far below Apple and Samsung. The early years were rough.
Its first smartwatch, the U8, drew poor Amazon reviews and faults like units that would not switch on. Noise did not make the hardware itself. Partners in Taiwan and China built it.
The real turn came in 2018, when the brand put its full weight behind wearables and hearables. The timing was good. Indians were starting to track steps, sleep and heart rate on a budget.
COVID-19 then pushed health to the front of every mind. By 2020 Noise was selling about four products a minute and held roughly a 27% share of the smartwatch market. That made it the market leader.
The playbook was simple. Build affordable, feature-rich devices for young Indians, sell them online, and launch new models fast. It worked at scale.
How Big Is Noise in 2026?
Noise is India’s No.1 smartwatch brand in 2026. It led the market in 2025 with a 26.6% share, well ahead of boAt at 14.1% and Fire-Boltt at 9.7%, says IDC’s India wearables tracker.
The brand also sits among the world’s top smartwatch makers, a rare place for a homegrown Indian label. It sells more than 40 products across the smartwatch and wireless earbud categories.
Noise says it has more than 40 million users. About 95% of its products are made in India, and it has moved into new shapes like the Luna Ring, its first smart ring, launched in 2023.
| Brand | Smartwatch share, India 2025 |
|---|---|
| Noise (Nexxbase) | 26.6% |
| boAt (Imagine Marketing) | 14.1% |
| Fire-Boltt | 9.7% |
One number tells the whole story. In India, about one in four smartwatches sold carries the Noise name.
Why Bose Invested $30 Million
For nine years, Noise took no outside money. That changed in December 2023, when the US audio giant Bose made its first investment in India by backing Noise. Noise called it a Series A round.
Bose first put in $10 million. In April 2025 it added $20 million more through convertible debentures, taking its total to $30 million. The April round valued Noise at about $420 million.
The deal gave Noise access to Bose’s audio engineering and global reach. Amit Khatri, co-founder of Noise, explained the thinking when the partnership was announced.
Amit Khatri put it this way:
“It’s about the right partnership at the right time, and we firmly believe that our strategic alliance with Bose will be a pivotal juncture in our journey.”
Amit Khatri, co-founder, Noise. From the company statement, December 2023.
Bose framed India as too big to ignore. Nicholas Smith, senior vice president for strategy and business development at Bose, said Noise’s lead in wearables and its grip on its customers made investing an obvious choice.
The Revenue Drop Nobody Talks About
The Noise journey is not a straight line up. Revenue fell 24% in FY25 to Rs 1,048 crore, from Rs 1,384 crore in FY24, its annual filing with the Registrar of Companies shows.
The company did report a net profit of Rs 3.2 crore. But that was helped by a one-time deferred tax gain of Rs 47 crore. Strip that out and the core business was barely at break-even.
Costs moved with the fall. Material costs, the biggest line, dropped 23% to Rs 725 crore. Marketing and advertising spend fell 37% to Rs 180 crore. Employee costs eased 12% to Rs 71 crore.
The drop was not only a Noise problem. India’s smartwatch shipments fell 17.6% in 2025 to 28.9 million units, the second straight yearly decline, IDC data show. Buyers grew tired of near-identical budget watches.
| Metric | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | Rs 1,384 Cr | Rs 1,048 Cr |
| Net profit | Not disclosed here | Rs 3.2 Cr |
| Marketing spend | Rs 286 Cr (approx) | Rs 180 Cr |
So the brand holds its crown in a shrinking market. Leading a falling category is still leading, but the growth years have paused.
What the Noise Journey Teaches Founders
The Noise journey carries clear lessons for Indian D2C founders. The first is about moats. A phone-cover business had none, so the Khatris moved to a harder product before the easy one died.
The second is about timing. Noise bet on wearables just as cheap health tracking reached middle-class India. It then rode the COVID-19 health wave instead of being caught out by it.
The third is about staying bootstrapped by choice. Nine years without outside money gave the founders full control and real negotiating power when Bose finally came calling.
The fourth is harder. A business built on fast, cheap launches can stall when buyers want fewer, better devices. The FY25 drop is the cost of that model meeting a tired market.
StartupFeed Insight
The Bose money is not about cash. Noise was already profitable and did not need $30 million to survive. It is about escaping the budget trap that just cut revenue by a quarter. The next phase of the Noise journey is a move up in price, using Bose tuning to sell dearer audio and premium watches where margins are real. Watch for a flagship product above Rs 15,000 in 2026. If Noise cannot sell premium, it stays the leader of a shrinking low-cost market, which is a weak place to be.
By Avinash Mishra, Business Correspondent
Frequently Asked Questions
What this means for you: If you run a bootstrapped D2C brand selling a low-cost product, the Noise journey shows a moat and a timely pivot matter more than early funding. Watch your category’s total shipments, not just your own share, before you plan FY27.
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