Sleep matters

Subodh Mehta
Sr. Vice President Godrej Interio

The home products market in India is transitioning from an unorganised one to an organised one with international as well as Indian brands getting a strong foothold. Reflecting this trend is the mattress segment with the increasing popularity of spring and health range of mattresses. “"Though the market size of branded mattresses will be close to Rs10,000 crore at present, the total market size would be almost three times of this. Thus, there is a huge gap that needs to be filled here", said Subodh Mehta, Sr. Vice President Godrej Interio. Mehta was in Chandigarh last week to launch the company's new range of posture support mattresses along with its Sleep@10 initiative. Excerpts from an interaction:

What is unique about the Indian market when we talk about mattresses?

Firstly, it is a highly unorganised market as still a majority of people use a cotton mattress which would be ok if it is made properly. But most of these mattresses are not made properly and lose shape soon. But now there is a shift towards organised players as more and more people are becoming aware of the importance of the selection of a proper mattress. People are so cautious about selecting a sofa or a bed but nor about the mattress, but now this is changing and people are becoming aware and organised players' role is to make them aware of the benefits and how to use mattresses properly

What are the new materials that are being introduced in this segment?

Material wise coir has been the traditional favourite. Basically it is nothing but wooden fires joined together by latex, but the control and shape changes after sometime making these uncomfortable. Now, the customers are veering towards foam mattresses. And in this segment a innovation and technological progress is taking place. So, we have memory foam mattresses, those with high resilience (HR), and even foam with a cool gel that is suited for regions with higher temperatures. Spring mattress is the third type and latex is also used, though it is not very popular in the Indian market. But selection is very important as a poorly constructed spring mattresses can cause back problems and worsen sleep disorders. A buyer should be careful about the functionality and construction of a mattress rather than just the material used.

What is the life span of an average mattress?

A good quality mattress should be changed in 12 to 13 years.

Ortho mattresses are a new trend in the market. How are these different from the regular ones?

Health range of mattresses are trending at present as customers are becoming aware of the importance of right posture while sleeping, These mattresses are designed to support body posture while sleeping keeping the body weight and pressure of different regions of body in mind. For example our new posture support range comes in three variants suited for different body types — Lean (40-60kg), Medium (50-90kg) and High Built (80-100kg). At present the health range is about 10 per cent of the total market. In our portfolio its share is of more than 50 per cent and is growing at almost 25 per cent annually.

What are the future designs that your company is going to introduce?

Our next one will be a tech-embedded 'smart mattress'. It will have temperature control, pressure regulator and a sleep pattern monitor built into it. Thus, once you connect it with your phone, you will get all info about your sleep patterns recorded and the mattress will 'adjust' accordingly to provide better sleep to a consumer. This is likely to be introduced in the next six to seven months and will be in the range of Rs50,000 and above.

— As told to Geetu Vaid