Dyson Technology set to breeze into India

Last November, when he visited India as part of UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s delegation, British billionaire inventor James Dyson had promised to soon bring here his disruptive appliances — which include a bell tower-shaped air purifier-cum-fan and a cordless stick vacuum cleaner.

Now, the plans have firmed up. An India team is in place, led by Vineet Taneja, former Micromax CEO and ex-Country Head of Mobile and Digital Imaging for Samsung Electronics. Taneja joined $3-billion Dyson Technology in June as its India Managing Director.

According to Dyson, the tech firm is gearing up for a year-end launch, and will invest £150 million in India over the next five years — a big chunk of which will go into setting up 20 stores across all major cities.

“India is a completely new market for us. We have no history in the country,” said Dyson, underscoring the need for a special push on experiential stores. Interestingly, in its home market of the UK, the company has only one such store. “We need to find new ways of selling in India, and will also sell through the internet, where we can talk directly to consumers,” he said.

This was the strategy used in China, a country which Dyson entered in 2012, and which has already become its third-largest market. The firm’s product portfolio includes floor care (vacuum cleaners), personal care (hair dryers and hand dryers) and environmental control (fans, humidifiers, air purifiers).

Dyson specially sees big potential for its fan-plus-air purifiers in India, which will be its 76th market. “Air conditioning is expensive in India, and there is nasty pollution in the country.”.

For James Dyson, there is an added emotional connect with India as his father fought with the Fourteenth Army in Burma during World War II. His father transferred his fascination with the subcontinent to his children through many stories that he published as illustrated books.

The demo stores are important as James Dyson believes all his products are fairly prosaic, low-interest items, even though they have disruptive designs, tech-driven high performance, and sell at a huge premium.

Dyson appliances are priced typically upwards of £300. The company spends £7 million on R&D every week at its sprawling Malmesbury campus in Wiltshire, UK, a lot of which goes into upgrading its tiny, but very speedy digital motor, which is the sacred core of all its products.

Two hundred engineers among its 3,500 engineering and scientist staff work on the motors alone. The assembly lines that produce these motors cost around £200 million. “When we change them, we throw away £200 million. But it is a disease, with us engineers, to try and do better,” said Dyson, who still sports the designation of Chief Engineer of the company.

Dyson says he is personally not as much excited about connected devices as he is about artificial intelligence and vision interpretation, on which Dyson is currently investing a lot. These technologies are currently being used in the firm’s autonomous vacuum cleaner products as well as air purifiers. It is also betting big on energy storage solutions and has pledged £1 billion on battery technology development, acquiring a Michigan-based solid-state battery start-up, Sakti3.

James Dyson is highly optimistic about Brexit, which he has been championing all along as he feels Britain needs to regain its sovereignty as well as support the Commonwealth countries rather than European ones. “When we first joined the European Union, I was actually very embarrassed and upset because we ignored the Commonwealth. We were ignoring people who fought for us,” he said. He said Europeans can study in British universities for £9,000 whereas Indians and Australians need to pay £27,000. “We need to partner with people who speak our language and understand us, and are among the fastest-growing markets. Europe is not.”

(The writer was in Malmesbury, UK, at the invitation of Dyson Technology)

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