How this Made in India smart lock brand is securing its position in an industry dominated by Chinese players

India has a booming home automation market. From electricals and electronics to voice assistants like Alexa, today people are aggressively embracing automation technologies to improve efficiency and productivity. 

Smart locking systems have also been paving into the Indian market for quite some time now and have transformed from being a luxury to a necessity. 

According to Research Nester, surging urbanisation, personal disposable income, and real estate industry are some of the factors to supplement the growth of the Indian smart door lock market, with a CAGR of 36.15% from 2016-2023. 

Capitalising on this trend is LAVNA Locks, a ‘Made in India’ brand, which is combining security with technology to make smart locks accessible in the country. Started in 2021 by Vishal Jain and Sanat Jain in Delhi, Lavna is standing out amid the stiff competition not just from large enterprises like Godrej, Yale, and others in India, but also from Chinese players that are dominating the Indian market. 

Building a homegrown brand

Vishal and Sanat started Lavna as an OEM in 2016 to make smart locks for various brands. Over a span of five years, the duo found a growing opportunity in the market and decided to launch their own private label. 

“Smart lock industry is at a nascent stage in India, but is opening up vigorously. However, there are only a few completely grown homegrown brands in the picture. The market is flooded with Chinese products,” says Sanat.

Brands like Yale, which introduced smart locks to India, are leading the Indian market followed by Godrej, Qubo, etc. Sanat says, Lavna is positioning itself to be a sought-after brand for customers who want security with convenience and some additional features. 

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“Take any country into the picture, India has a large population of joint families, and the biggest issue they face is managing doors at odd hours. Even carrying a key is a concerning problem that we want to solve,” says Sanat. 

Explaining the features of the products, he says, Lavna currently deals in seven variants that starts from Rs 4,000 and goes up to Rs 12,000 depending upon the variant a customer needs. 

The basic variant of the smart locks consists of fingerprint unlocking along with the key and the highest range comprising fingerprint, RFID card, PIN, Bluetooth unlocking, OTP unlocking, and the key. 

The smart locks are suitable not just for the households, but are of dire need for corporations as well. In just a year of its launch, Lavna has bagged notable clients like Adani Power Plant Group, Air India, among others, with its B2B customer base standing at 1,100 and B2C at 10,000 customers. 

The company has clocked Rs 4 crore revenue as of now, and is eyeing Rs 10 crore revenue by the end of this fiscal year.

Thriving the competition

While the Indian market boasts of established players, Lavna is creating a space for itself by bringing in additional features and services, which Sanat claims many brands have ignored.

“We are standing out from our peers in terms of additional features we are giving at optimum pricing. We are giving finger print user capacity of 100 unlike other players who have a limit of 25,” Sanat claims.

However, the biggest challenge and competition for Lavna are the Chinese companies who are making smart locks available to consumers at a competitive price. But Sanat says that he doesn’t consider this as a challenge as the quality parameter is high compared to locks offered by the Chinese brands.  

“Smart lock is a service-driven industry and after-sale services matters the most and we have a strong network across major cities of India like Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Delhi/NCR, Kolkata, Bengaluru, etc., which many companies do not have,” says Sanat. 

Future plans

Technology is the key in the smart lock business and Sanat says the company is continuously working on upgrading technology to bring in more features to its products. 

Presently, Lavna locks are through hardware retail stores and the aim is to strengthen the retail presence in the next one year. The brand is also available on Amazon and B2B portals like Moglix.