India’s e-laundry startups to get a boost as market set to hit $15b by 2025, report says

The laundry services market in India is set to hit US$15 billion in value by 2025, up 33% from 2019, driven by a consistent growth in investments, according to market research firm RedSeer.

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The market includes both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) categories, with B2C firms taking up 88% of the total market share.

While the B2C segment includes laundry activities like washing and ironing clothes for individual households, B2B services involve the laundry activities of businesses from sectors like hospitality and healthcare.

Photo credit: RedSeer

The report noted that the current e-laundry market in India has only a handful of serious players. Over 100 startups have come up in this space in the last five years, and less than 20 have bagged seed funding at present.

The Covid-19 pandemic has also bolstered the adoption of online services. The number of households in India that carry out digital transactions, for instance, is expected to reach about 200 million in 2025 (up from 130 million in 2019). The online laundry space will likely piggyback on this trend and grow “significantly,” according to the report.

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“Laundry is a daily and never-ending chore in almost every household. While there is immense scope for easing up the customer’s life through outsourcing, there is a critical mindset shift required to capture market share,” said Kanishka Mohan, associate partner at RedSeer Consulting. “Internationally, laundry services are innovating across various customer touch points to simplify laundry.”