India’s home appliance market has undergone a significant transformation over the past decade. From a value of $82.17 Billion in 2025 to an expected value of $143.04 Billion by 2035, the home appliance market is burgeoning rapidly. Consumers now are increasingly looking for products that combine convenience, functionality, aesthetics and healthier living. Similarly, kitchens are becoming more integrated with homes, while appliances are evolving from single-purpose machines into smarter, multifunctional solutions that are designed around everyday usage and cooking habits. At the same time, Indian consumers are becoming more informed and increasingly willing to pay for technology when its value is clear.
The air fryer category is a strong example of this shift. Once a niche appliance, it has steadily found a place in Indian kitchens as consumers look for ways to prepare familiar foods with less oil without compromising on taste. That said, this adoption has not been driven by technology alone. Consumer education, regional food preferences and the ability to demonstrate real-world results have played a key role in building the category.
To understand the home appliance market in India better, we sat down for a conversation with Gulbahar Taneja, MD and CEO of Versuni India. During our conversation we talked about everything from the changing Indian home appliance market to the rise of air fryers beyond metros, and from AI-powered cooking devices to how local manufacturing could shape the next phase of appliance innovation in India. Here are some of most interesting bits from the conversation:
Air fryer: trends, barriers to adoption and future
During our conversation, we talked extensively about air fryers as a category in the Indian market and how in the past couple of years, it has gone from being a niche appliance in a few homes to a mainstream device in India. A part of the credit for its rapid adoption goes to the growing preference for healthy food options in the country. But that’s not the only factor that has lead to its adoption in India.
“What we have learned in the last 14, 15 years of consumer education is that for the Indian consumer, taste is still paramount. We want to eat healthy, but we don’t want to compromise on our taste,” Taneja told HT Tech.
He also said that the demand is expanding beyond metropolitan markets and that tier-2 and tier-3 cities now contributing significantly. “Today the demand is 50-50: tier-one and metros contribute 50% of the demand, and 50% comes from tier-two and tier-three cities,” he told us adding that he expects further growth, citing low penetration in urban households. “Penetration is still low â it’s two to three percent of Indian urban households. There is a huge market which is still untapped.”
Another interesting insight that the Versuni India MD and CEO shared was regarding the barriers to the adoption of home appliances in India. Taneja said that taste remains one of the biggest barriers to the increased adoption of this device. “…the biggest barrier for consumers is still whether the taste will remain the same â “Will I be compromising on the taste?,” he told HT Tech
Other barriers include limited product awareness and kitchen space. “The second barrier â which we are addressing with the help of channels like offline and e-commerce â is availability. Consumers sometimes don’t get full visibility of all the types of appliances or air fryers available, and how to choose among them…Third, in India we are very cautious about the space we have in our kitchens. Consumers are still trying to figure out what they need to take out of the kitchen to bring a new appliance in,” he added.
During our conversation, we also touched upon the subject of AI adoption in the air fryer category. When asked if there was any scope for AI adoption in the air fryer space, the Versuni India MD and CEO said that his company was exploring AI features that could recommend recipes and understand consumer cooking habits. “The whole idea is: how do we make AI intuitive, and eventually help the consumer do better â or do more â with the same appliance?,” he said.
Trends in home appliance category
In addition to air fryers, we talked about the growth and trends in the larger home appliance category. During the interview, Taneja identified four major categories that are witnessing a strong growth in India right now. These categories include air fryers, air purifiers, garment steamers and coffee machine.
“…air fryer, because everywhere you go people are cooking quickly in it â it’s healthier and easier. Besides the air fryer, air purifiers. We are increasingly becoming aware of the impact of pollution on us, so air purifiers is another category growing very fast in India,” Taneja said.
“The third is â one of the reasons we want to eat healthy is because we want to look good â and that’s where garment steamers are playing a very important role…Slowly and gradually, the entire sensibility and knowledge around coffee created a very big market for coffee machines in India,” he added.
Global semiconductor shortage
Another important topic that we touched upon during our conversation is the global semiconductor shortage and its impact on home appliance category. While he admitted that the chip shortage has impacted the home appliance category at large, however, Versuni’s global presence helped it manage supply challenges.
“There is an impact as far as cost is concerned â costs have gone up, and we can’t do much about that. But having global capacity has helped us manage the supply chain in a very difficult period.”
Make in India
Lastly, we talked about the impact of manufacturing devices in India will have on the larger home appliance category. When asked if greater local manufacturing would eventually lead to more competitive pricing for Indian consumers, Versuni India head said the said phenomenon would not only lead to competitive pricing but also improve supply chain resilience.
“Getting something from another part of the world requires a lot of insurance, transportation, carrying-and-forwarding charges. Those benefits [manufacturing in India] will pass on to the consumer. And resilience on the supply chain has become very important in the current geopolitical situation â being self-sustained in terms of whatever we want is very important. So it will have both effects, and we have already seen the benefit through local manufacturing as far as prices are concerned,” he told HT Tech.
