Bangalore: Titan Industries is looking at the possibility of taking its Tanishq brand to the US soon and expects to treble its turnover to around Rs 1,000 crore in five years.

The jewellery division also plans to increase outsourcing and expand its chain of retail stores apart from introducing the silverware range of products.

"We should soon exceed the watch division's sales as the industry's market size is much bigger and we expect to capture a 10 per cent market share in five years," Tanishq chief operating officer Jacob Kurian said.

Kurian said the current sales which constitute a mere 3 per cent of the Rs 12,000 crore jewellery market should gallop over the next few years.

"We have continued to outperform the market which has shown a declining trend," he said.

While the retail segment of the market declined by nearly 40 per cent in the second quarter of 2002-03 compared with the same quarter in 2001-02, Tanishq grew 88 per cent.

Kurian said the division will increase its outsourcing as its vendor management has started yielding results.

He said Tanishq's Hosur plant manufactures 30 per cent of its total production which will decline to around 20 per cent over the next few years.

He said though the watch division currently contributes over 60 per cent of total sales of Titan Industries, while the rest is contributed by the jewellery division.

"This could change to 55 per cent from the jewellery business and the rest from the watch business in a few years," Kurian said.

Currently, sales from the watch division which declined 7 per cent over the last fiscal is around Rs 457 crore out of a total sales of around Rs 727 crore during 2001-02.

Sales from the jewellery division, which grew 31 per cent over last year, is around Rs 268 crore.

Kurian said currently a pilot project has been undertaken with a US-based jeweller where Tanishq's products are being sold.

"Based on the feedback, we could look at setting up shops there," he said. He said the division expects to add 17 more stores to the existing 53 stores in a few years.

"All the 53 stores are growing around 40 per cent," Kurian said. He said the division's retail sales grew by 50 per cent during the first half of 2002-03. During 2001-02, it grew 42 per cent.

He said the division's 'FQ' brand introduced sometime ago and is targeted at the youth outsells other brands in its category.

He said he expects FQ to contribute around Rs 6 crore during 2002-03. He said one of the problems faced by the division initially was that though Tanishq's show rooms were very inviting, few turned up to buy.

"We had very beautiful stores, but very few customers, which made even those who turned up a bit nervous," he said.

Kurian said the marketing strategy earlier was built around what Tanishq wanted to offer the customers rather than what the customers wanted.

"We focused on getting more people to the stores. We built a strategy which was completely customer-centric," he said.

Kurian said one of their promotions on exchanging impure gold for pure gold whipped up sales by nearly 300 per cent.

"Last year, a million people shopped at our stores," he said.