Wipro smart lighting to end its online exclusivity

Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting is expanding its smart lighting business to offline retail. While the products were earlier available exclusively on Amazon India, the company now plans to push them into offline retail as well. Wipro Smart Lighting Solutions has expanded its product line-up from a smart bulb introduced in October 2018 to a full range of lighting and smart security solutions in December 2019.

"Wipro smart bulb was the number one smart bulb on Amazon India. We have over 50 per cent market share in smart lighting on Amazon. Until now, we were focused only on an e-commerce platform but now we have started going in offline as well. Initially, we are targeting towns with a population of more than 10 lakh. By September-October this year, you will see a lot of our products in the retail chain," says Sanjay Gupta, Senior Vice President & Business Head, Consumer Lighting & Switches, Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting.

Wipro smart lighting offerings include smart bulb and batten, which are WiFi enabled and smart panel and smart COB which works on Bluetooth Mesh technology. All the lighting products are white turntable, comes with 16 million colour options, are dimmable, supports voice commands and can be controlled from anywhere using with Wipro App. The smart home security system comprises Wipro smart camera, smart doorbell, smart socket and smart extension with four smart plugs and two USB ports. 

"Over the last three decades, Wipro Lighting has combined technology and innovation to provide cutting edge solutions to consumers. Wipro pioneered LED range, smart lighting, in India. Our key focus is to lead and revolutionize the smart lighting market. Currently, the contribution of smart lighting to total lighting business is 3 per cent and by FY 2020-21, this should be around 15 per cent of the total business," adds Gupta.

Over the last couple of years, smart lighting has gained a lot of traction amongst consumers as it is much easier to control a bulb from an app or using a voice command. The colour-changing feature of smart lighting offers flexibility and the dimmable option results in energy saving. Until now, the smart bulbs were the most popular smart lighting category but now smart COBs that are fitted in the false ceiling are also in great demand.

Commenting on the impact Coronavirus may cause, Gupta explains "35 per cent of the component in a bulb comes from China. And if the current situation continues, there might be a shortage of stocks. However, Wipro is looking at alternate sources to address the issue." Industry sources suggest that the shortage of components may result in increased production cost, which will be passed on to the consumer.

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