‘Our Primary Competition Is Apathy’: Why Indians Ruin ₹1 Lakh TVs With ₹200 Cables

From buying ₹1 lakh TVs and pairing them with ₹200 cables to ignoring the air we breathe, Mohit Anand, Co-founder & CEO of Secure Connection (licensed to sell Honeywell consumer products in India), argues Indians often get the essentials wrong. In this conversation-led narrative, his quotes drive a simple promise that implies better basics, better everyday tech.

The first thing Mohit Anand tells me is not about a flashy new gadget, it’s about attention. “Our primary competition is apathy,” he says. Not another brand or a price war. It’s why a lot of Indians still pair premium devices with the wrong accessories or skip the stuff that actually improves daily experience.

He frames our digital lives as four screens, which are phone, laptop/PC, TV, and tablet, and what we do on them. We usually create memories, stream, work, and stay in touch. “We’re the brass tacks that make those experiences come alive,” he says — chargers, surge protectors, HDMI cables, docks, wireless chargers, travel adapters, speakers, soundbars, and air purifiers.

The ₹200 mistake that ruins ₹1 lakh devices

Anand is blunt about the false economy many of us practice. “We will not compromise on quality to meet a price point,” he says, before offering the everyday example: you buy a great 4K TV and then use a cheap, under-spec’d cable. Or you get a flagship phone, then stick a no-name charger on it. When things go wrong, it’s the TV or the phone that takes the blame.

He backs the quality talk with risk on his side. “That’s why we offer a three-year warranty on even a simple wall charger and a two-year warranty on a TWS earbud.” On surge protection, he ups the ante, “if there’s a spike and your TV got burned, I will not only replace my surge protector, I’ll repair or replace… that TV also” — up to the value attached to that model.

It’s not just talk. Some of the most invisible essentials are actually among India’s biggest sellers. “I sell over 100,000 HDMI cables a month,” Anand says. His point is that the right spec cable or dock is not a luxury; it’s the difference between your device performing to promise — or not.

The air we ignore (and inhale)

If accessories are the overlooked enablers, air is the ignored essential. Anand shares a line that should be printed on every Indian fridge magnet - “You don’t drink four liters of water a day, but you inhale 11,000 liters of air.”

He isn’t surprised that air purifiers have quietly become a third of their business by value. “We’re well above one-fourth of the entire market” in India, he says of Honeywell purifiers, adding that prices are kept consistent across offline, e-commerce and quick-commerce to avoid noisy price wars. Awareness, not rivals, is the real fight, “it’s a market-making task.”

Service as a consumer promise, not a slogan

Great warranties are useful only if service is painless. Anand describes a simple rule: “All you have to do is call. We pick up the defective parts from your home and deliver the replacement to your home.” For bigger products — air purifiers, soundbars with subwoofers—“it’s doorstep repair,” including filter changes. And, he says, this isn’t a metro-only privilege.

Design that travels across India

On aesthetics, Anand gives credit to India’s design-forward players, then offers a scaled brand’s reality, “once you reach a certain scale, your edginess has to be softened at the edges.” The goal is universally likeable design that still feels considered — braided textures, metallic finishes, clean lines — even on humble products like cables and chargers.

Then there’s the statement piece like Aviator, the premium home speaker that took 19 months to design. “We can go up against them,” he says when I mention B&O, smiling. For consumers, he hints at a pipeline worth watching, “You will notice more Aviator-like products… second to none, anywhere in the world.”

The long game consumers actually feel

If there’s a unifying thread, it’s patience. Brand building, he insists, isn’t a hack. “There’s no silver bullet… it’s a long, hard grind”—consistent quality, visible products, clean after-sales, small acts of education repeated over time.

For Indian consumers, that grind shows up as stable pricing, longer warranties, doorstep service, safer power, and cleaner air. It’s not glamorous. But as Anand kept reminding me, the things that make technology delightful are often the ones we don’t see — until they fail.