Can Dishwashers Revolutionise the Indian Kitchen?
26 May 2025 6:10 PM IST
The modern Indian woman is a force to be reckoned with. In the India our parents grew up in, gender roles were clear. The man worked outside the house and brought in the dough. The woman managed the home – cooking, cleaning, and raising the children. But, today’s women do it all – working outside, and inside the house.
Thankfully, there’s technologies that have made domestic work easier. There’s mops with long handles, so we don’t have to get on our knees. There’s vacuum cleaners and washing machines, which significantly reduce how much effort cleaning and washing clothes takes.
And then, there’s dishwashers, which make doing the dishes significantly less annoying. For now, dishwashers are not a staple in most Indian kitchens. But that was also true for washing machines at one point–can dishwashers be the next major upgrade to our lives?
Let’s find out, in the latest episode of The Signal Daily!
NOTE: A machine transcribed this episode. A human has looked at this text but there might still be errors. Please refer to the audio above, if you need to clarify something. If you want to give us feedback, please write to us at [email protected].
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TRANSCRIPT
Krittika: I actually got the dishwasher, uh, right before the pandemic. Okay. So, uh, yeah, so, uh, a dishwasher is something that I really wanted, uh, in my house. So once I got married, uh, that was in 2018. By 20 19th February, I had already placed an order and we had a dishwasher at home.
Kudrat: That was Krittika Sharma, who’s 36 and works at a government organisation.
Krittika: I had visited my brother in the US and uh, that's when, that was my first experience with the dishwasher where, you know, you could just, uh, put all the vessels in a machine and it was automated and you wake up to wake up or you know, you come back to clean vessels, which are Warm and shiny, and that for me was, was a very big pull.
Kudrat: Krittika said she got a basic model from IFB, one of very few brands that sell dishwashers in India. After a 5,000 rupee discount, Krittika paid 30,000 rupees for it.
When Krittika got her dishwasher in 2019, it was not a concept that most Indians were familiar with. Specifically, estimates say that in 2019, the dishwasher market in India was worth between 140 - 200 crores. In contrast, the AC market was about 20,000 crores, the refrigerator market was 21,000 crores and the washing machine market was 8,000 crore rupees.
Even in the US, where 60% of households have a dishwasher, the market does lag behind those of other household appliances. But, in India, the difference is much more stark. Dishwasher makers say their biggest competitors in India are Indian maids and domestic helpers.
Kudrat: In the West, only the 1% can afford to hire domestic help. In India, where labour is cheap, even the middle classes have some form of part-time help. If you don’t have to deal with your dirty dishes yourself, why spend money to upgrade your kitchen?
Kudrat: Then again, is it really sustainable to rely on help all the time? The recent pandemic forced a lot of people to question their lifestyles. Because of social distancing, there were a few months when we were not interacting with anyone outside our specific households.
That was also a time when dishwasher sales picked up in India. In an interview for a story for afaqs!, Swati Rathi, the marketing head of Godrej Appliances, said that during the pandemic, dishwasher sales rose by 100%.
During that time, dishwasher companies also began an aggressive marketing campaign. The German company Bosch added a Kadhai cleaning button to their dishwashers sold in India, you know, for those pesky oil and masala stains at the bottom of kadhais. The company also made ads that busted common misconceptions that Indians had – about whether it’s safe to use steel bartans in dishwashers, or how much water the machine uses.
Here’s an example of one such advertisement:
Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jDURZUn37Q
Kudrat: Though dishwasher sales boomed during the pandemic, they’re now back to pre-pandemic levels. Still, it’s not as if people aren’t buying them at all. The market is growing at a rate of 2% in India, versus 5-7% abroad.
To find out what’s going on on the ground, The Signal Daily visited a popular technology store chain in New Delhi. Here’s some bits of the conversation I had with two employees working there:
Scene footage:
Kudrat: What have you seen in your experience?
RM: In my experience, I've seen that dishwashers are mainly like sold in high income areas. Okay. Because they are for Bosch, they, they come in the range of like 50,000 to 80 91 lakh also. So the low end customers cant buy those. Mm. Uh, and the medium range customers who have the demand for this, they come for LG ones as those are like 25 to 30,000.
Kudrat: The first employee I spoke to said he’s noticed that it's mostly people living in high-income areas that buy dishwashers. Their main reason for buying a dishwasher is convenience – long working hours and commutes means very little time and energy to do housework.
RM: For me, I think dishwashers are becoming more common in the new generation because, uh, we, our working hours are extended and we travel from long distances also. So we reach around 10 or 11:00 PM at home. That is not possible to wash hands through, wash through hands.
Kudrat: Still, the employees agreed that dishwashers are not a mass market yet. To them, that’s because of cultural attitudes of wanting to do things by hand. And also because people still perceive dishwashers as a luxury item.
RD: I think because. Nowadays. Also, our parents also like to do things by our hands, mainly our, uh, the uten that we use for, uh, eating. So I think the mentality has not like accepted it. The dishwasher also one range is a price.
It also price point, but that's specific to Bosch, right? I mean, there are other, uh. Cheaper dishwashers out there. But then also, uh, 24 to 30,000 also is not a cheap amount. Uh, some people will say that for only washing dishes, why will I spend so much?
Kudrat: In India, we have a bias toward tradition, toward grinding spices using a mortar and pestle versus in a mixie, for example. “It just tastes better,” is what some people believe.
In fact, according to a Times of India report from a couple years ago, even in the US, the segment that’s most resistant to picking up dishwashers are new Indian and Chinese immigrants.
Reactionary attitudes aside, there’s also another factor – the price point. Though there are dishwashers that cost 20-30k, the good ones that have a sizable capacity don’t come under 50k. And then you’ll have to buy special pods for dishwashers. You might have to pay for repairs too, in case something happens to the machine. All of that combined will end up being a big investment for most Indians.
But, for dishwasher owners Krittika, the convenience of the dishwasher outweighs its cost.
Krittika: I feel, uh, it is worth the investment because. I, because you don't have to haggle with someone. I, at least in my area, I don't like to listen to someone come into my house and tell me, there are way too many dishes. Let me use the number of dishes I want to use.
It is not going to be a problem for me. That offsets the cost. In a very big way.
Krittika: I want my mental piece and for working people, I think that goes over that cost. If you can afford it, why not?
Kudrat: If you haven’t been able to tell yet, Krittika is a big fan of the dishwasher. She and her brother even bought one for their mother and grandmother.
Kudrat: And that’s where they faced another challenge – right now, Indian kitchens are not made for dishwashers. That machine is quite large – 3 feet in height and 2 feet width – and you need a dedicated space with a power outlet and water tap with solid pressure. That’s another hidden cost for consumers to consider.
Krittika: six months ago I got my kitchen renovated and I was finally able to..Indian kitchens don't have space for dishwashers, right? Hmm. So I had. To redo my kitchen and specifically make a space for it. And the construction workers were very unsure about it. And, you know, this was something that we could hear over and over again that ek dishwasher ki wajah se poore kitchen ka naksha badal diya hai.
So anyway, I got the dishwasher installed and you know, I had to get new pipelines and everything, all of that done.
Kudrat: Not just Krittika, even her mom and grandmom had to refurbish their kitchen.
Krittika: Yeah, so my mom, uh, again, it was, it was a very old house, but she did get her a part of her kitchen refurbished, which cost her maybe around, uh, 20 to 30 grand.
Including the new slabs, breaking up, old slabs, getting new power connections and all of that. Yes, that is an investment, again, on top of a dishwasher that you're probably going to buy. But again, this is, this is a. And inconvenience of, uh, the refurbishment that she does not regret.
They are happy and me knowing that my mom, my grandmother, are safe because, you know, when you wash dishes, dishes, there is water on the floor.
My grandmother is prone to falling. There is, uh, hygiene issues because she can't see properly, but she wants to wash dishes. Me knowing that all of these are taken care of because there's a dishwasher at home, makes it easier for her. Me and my sibling to convince them, and yes, it's a cost. But it's worth it.
Kudrat: So, can dishwashers revolutionise the Indian kitchen? Maybe not overnight. There are hurdles—cultural habits, high costs, and kitchens not built to accommodate new appliances. But slowly, a shift is underway. For those who can afford them, dishwashers offer more than convenience. They offer dignity, independence, and peace of mind.
As with many technologies, what begins as a luxury often becomes a necessity over time. Washing machines were once rare too. Today, they're in most middle and high income urban homes. Maybe dishwashers are just waiting for their moment.
Until then, it’s worth asking: how much is your time, your mental peace, and your autonomy worth? And if a machine can help reclaim even a bit of that—maybe it’s not such a bad investment after all.
Kudrat: That’s all for today. You just heard The Signal Daily. We don’t do hot takes. Instead, we’ll bring you deep dives into the ‘how’ and ‘why’ on consumer trends.
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