Water quality is a major concern in India, which is why water purifiers have become so important today. Livpure is one of the leading water purifier brands in the country, and we were recently invited to the company’s manufacturing facility near Delhi. Here, we witnessed how a Livpure water purifier is made, and later we sat down with Rakesh Kaul, Managing Director and CEO of Livpure, to understand where the brand stands in this market and what sets it apart from the competition. He shared how the company addresses market challenges like low penetration and inconsistent water quality through a subscription-based purchase model, indigenisation, a growing network of exclusive retail experience centres, and cutting-edge technologies like AI and IoT for predictive maintenance and consumer transparency.
Here are the key excerpts from our interaction:
Q. How do you describe the current state of India’s water purifier market, and where do you see Livpure in the ongoing future?
Rakesh Kaul: As far as the current state of the Indian water market is concerned, there’s been a healthy growth of 7 to 10% for the last 3 to 4 years, though the penetration levels still remain low at around 7%, with urban contributing 12 to 15% and rural 3 to 4%. So there’s obviously enough headroom for growth in this category, and I see that, given the quality of the water across India, the need for an electrical water purifier is very much relevant for Indian households.
I believe that, over a period of time, the penetration will touch double digits and move into the vicinity of around 15% in another four to five years. To that extent, I believe that the future of the Indian water purifier market looks good at this point.
Q. What are the growth areas as well as the challenges that the brand is facing?
Rakesh Kaul: As far as the challenges are concerned, it’s not only the brand. I think at the industry level, the industry is going to largely face challenges in a couple of areas.
As far as the product challenges are concerned, the challenge is around the quality of water available across India, which is different from place to place. At times, even within the same district, we have different quality of water. So, given the fact that the quality of water changes from place to place, it becomes imperative to understand how to purify it. Reverse osmosis became a gold standard for clearing all the impurities and also bringing the TDS down, as well as removing chemical impurities like arsenic and lead, or any other such heavy metals.
So, the industry challenge, from the perspective of how they keep bringing uniform solutions to water purifiers across the country, and as far as the other challenges the industry is grappling with, there are two primary ones. One is affordability: how the product is made more affordable over a period of time, and how penetration increases from the current 7%. The second challenge in this industry is the total cost of ownership. Given the fact that a water purifier, as a product, requires consistent service over a period of time because of the usage of consumables and the quality of the water that goes through those filters, the total cost of ownership at times becomes more than the acquisition cost within just three years. So I think that’s one of the key challenge areas.
As far as the consumer challenge is concerned, today the consumer is grappling with whether the water they are drinking is safe, because there are a plethora of brands with conflicting claims about the technology they’re using, and the consumer is not very sure how the brands are delivering safe and quality water. I think these are the larger challenges that the various industry brands and consumers are facing today.
Q. One of your key recent launches is Livpure Lotier, which is billed as India’s first AI water purifier. What brought you to launching it, and which other emerging technologies are you currently working on?
Rakesh Kaul: Given the fact that AI and IoT-connected appliances are gaining impressive ground across categories in India today, water purifiers were probably the last category to be a part of this AI thrust. When we launched this, one of the biggest things we wanted to address was consumer truth and consumer transparency.
We saw that many brands competing in this space would go to consumers and start asking for annual maintenance contract renewals or filter changes, at times when the consumers may or may not actually need them. The consumer, being unaware of whether the filters inside a water purifier actually needed replacing, would end up spending money unnecessarily. There was no transparency around it, and a lot of times, a fear factor was also involved. Consumers were made to understand by technicians that the water purifier was not safe to use.
So we brought in this product primarily to reveal two important consumer truths. One was whether the water you are given is actually quality output. So, what was the input TDS, which was the incoming water quality and the total dissolved solvents in the water, and what was the output TDS, which is the water being consumed? The consumer gets a very fair idea of the kind of water they are drinking.
Second, it has real-time filter indicators for all the filters used, which virtually puts the power in the hands of the consumer to decide, and nobody can actually mislead the consumer about when a consumable needs to be replaced, because it depends on usage and is measured and demonstrated by the filter itself. So it’s called predictive maintenance. IoT and AI have helped us reach out to consumers so that there is more transparency about filter usage and when they need to be replaced.
Q. Are there any other technologies that you’re working on?
Rakesh Kaul: Yes. There is a lot of challenge around groundwater quality in India today. Increasingly, we are seeing groundwater infested with microplastics. We are also seeing traces of uranium in many places, as well as a lot of fluoride content in the water across certain parts of India.
We are about to launch a product called Ultra, which will take care of two things primarily. As you know, the majority of reverse osmosis systems tend to discard water to the extent of almost 60 to 70%. The BIS norms that came into effect in November 2024 mandated that water purifiers cannot waste more than 60% of the water, so 40% recovery is the norm. Here at Livpure, we did not just stick to 40%. We have a high-recovery membrane, and we are one of the earliest innovators in this space. Our membrane has the capacity to recover almost 70% of the water. This newly launched product will also be able to remove microplastics and traces of uranium, and we have the requisite certifications to prove that. As a brand, we continuously invest in technology.
Q. We have been through the factory and have seen many of your products in the making. What is the total production capacity of Livpure?
Rakesh Kaul: Currently, this factory can produce up to 1 lakh water units, and we are doing pretty well in terms of the production aspect.
Q. How about sourcing components? Are they sourced domestically?
Rakesh Kaul: As far as the total water purifier is concerned, today we have reached a domestic indigenisation level of 82%, so only 18% of the components are still imported. We are one of the most backwards-integrated water companies in the country. We have a backward integration of around 80%, which means most of the components are made within this factory itself.
Q. How do you ensure quality control across all these processes?
Rakesh Kaul: Since they are made in-house, they all pass through stringent quality standards, which is a part of our quality motto: maintaining TQM, which is Total Quality Management, and Kaizen.
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Q. Moving from production to servicing, what kind of service can a customer expect once they purchase one of your products?
Rakesh Kaul: Today in India, we have service enabled in 19,000 pin codes, reaching almost 98% of India. We have more than 2,500 feet-on-street technicians and more than 1,200 franchises. Our promise to the consumer is that within city limits, we will install or repair within 24 hours, and for upcountry locations, a maximum of 48 to 60 hours.
Q. There has recently been news about stores where consumers can try and test your products. What are the goals you have set for these stores?
Rakesh Kaul: As part of our diversification programme, within a very short span of two years, we have come to command more than 6 to 7% market share in the chimney segment. We launched voice chimneys that can understand five different languages, and autonomous chimneys that can sense smoke. We decided to do a pan-India rollout of exclusive business outlets. A certain size of outlet, about 500 square feet, is called a ‘Smart Home,’ and a size of 200 to 300 square feet is called a ‘Studio.’ By the end of the year, we aim to have a combination of 150 to 160 stores.
Q. Are these stores only located in cities, or are they planned for other areas as well?
Rakesh Kaul: The plan is basically a three-year plan to roll out 500 stores, and we are very democratic in our approach. We have stores in Kashmir, the Northeast, the South, Gujarat, and Madras. We are a democratic brand, since we are present in 19,000 pin codes as far as service is concerned.
Q. How do you consider feedback and act upon it?
Rakesh Kaul: One of our leading businesses is a subscription business, where we install almost 20,000 to 22,000 water purifiers on subscription across India. Those are all IoT machines, and they carry a lot of diagnostics in terms of water consumption and quality. For example, in certain areas, we felt there was a demand for alkaline water, so we recently introduced an alkaline version.
Q. Regarding the subscription-based service, have you seen any change in adoption as well as loyalty?
Rakesh Kaul: We wanted to resolve the problem of the total cost of ownership. The second was the challenge of jar water, where the source of water is unknown, and a family might spend 1,000 to 1,200 rupees per month. Subscription resolves both the total cost of ownership and the quality concern.
Q. What would you say to a prospective consumer deciding between you and other brands?
Rakesh Kaul: When it comes to subscription, we can tell them, ‘no questions asked.’ Forget about maintenance and changing filters; everything is on us. Even in product sales, we offer a 30-month maintenance-free service, which means we change the filter, motor pump, whatever, we’ll take care of it. That’s a big differentiation.
Q. As for the broader portfolio of products, what is your pitch?
Rakesh Kaul: We would like to be known as a wellness brand. We want to be a player of relevance in the home automation space, which includes air purification, air cooling, mattresses, and home furnishings.
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