An IITian decided to create a highly effective water filter for his family after his son got jaundice

And created what we know as Kent RO today. A brand with:

- 40% market share in RO purifiers
- Revenue of 1000 crores Rs
- And sabse shudh paani

A thread on Kent RO

1/

1987 - After working with IOCL as an engineer for 10 years, Mahesh Gupta started his own venture of manufacturing oil meters for B2B clients

1998 - His son got jaundice after drinking polluted water. After that, he researched on water purifiers available in the market

2/

He found out that the commonly used UV purifiers could not completely remove the dissolved impurities from water.

After more research, he found about Reverese osmosis (RO) which was a much more powerful process than the UV process & could remove even the dissolved impurities

3/

Around that time, no one in India was using RO for water purification. So he decided to test it by importing a membrane and a pump from US. And made his own RO purifier at home

4/

He realized that he can scale it as a business which would be differentiated from all the competition

With a seed capital of 5 lacs, he started importing equipments and building water purifiers at his home

5/

1999- he patented this technology and started commercially selling purifiers under the brand name Kent RO

The cost of these purifiers was 20,000 Rs which was very high compared to traditional UV purifiers which cost around 3000 Rs at that time

6/

Mahesh hired a small sales team which would go from door to door selling the purifiers

The sales were really low with the team selling only 10-15 purifiers per month. But Mahesh was patient and did not get bog down

7/

He realized that to Fastrack the slow growth the company would need to invest in advertising and marketing the product

In 2006, Kent onboarded Hema Malini for the famous ad which did the trick for them. Kent earned 30 crores in revenues that year

8/

To keep up with the increasing demand, Mahesh setup his first large factory in Roorkee. He managed to keep the production costs under tight control.

He also expanded his distribution network by adding distributors, retailers and sales team

9/

Kent also invested in increasing brand awareness by sponsoring Indian, West Indies and Sri Lankan cricket team. They have also sponsored many test series as well.

Today the company sells close to 6 lac water purifiers every year and makes 1000 crores in revenues

10/

They have a 40% market share in RO water purifier category.

Apart from this, Kent also has products in vaccum cleaners, air purifiers and vegetable cleaner categories as well

11/

Given that the penetration of water purifier is really low in India (close to 4-5%) the company has huge growth potential in coming years in India and other countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh where the products are exported.

12/12

Sources:

https://businessconnectindia.in/blogs/story-of-mahesh-gupta/ https://www.cnbctv18.com/videos/entrepreneurship/the-story-behind-kent-ro-water-purifiers-invention-1802241.htm