Titan to roll out new watch brands
Business Standard — February 13, 2007

Watches and jewellery maker Titan Industries is planning an aggressive roll out of brands in the less than Rs 10,000 price segment in the coming financial year.

The Rs 1500-crore Tata Group company is also expanding capacities by opening its 5th assembly unit at Roorkee.

Titan Industries' head of sales (Titan brand), K S Ghai, told media on the sidelines of the launch of Xylys watches range in Pune, that the company intended to add to its presence towards the upper part of the sub-Rs 10,000 watch segment by bringing nine different brands in the coming financial year 2007-08.

The exercise will in fact begin later this month, when the company will launch Aviator collection in the Rs 4,000-Rs 8,000 price band. Ghai said the company is looking at selling about 35,000 units of Aviator watches during the first year of launch. "The under Rs 10,000 segment is growing very fast at about 25 per cent per year, and we want an increased presence there," Ghai said. Titan has a market share of over 60 per cent in this segment.

Aviator will be sold in 300 select outlets including the World of Titan, multibrand stores and large format retail, he added.

In order to support the ambitious launch plan, the company is setting up its 5th assembly unit in Roorkee, near Delhi, Ghai said. The company has its central manufacturing facility at Hosur in Tamil Nadu and assembly units in Tansi, Baddi and Dehra Dun.

Ghai said Xylys collection is in the premium range with a price tag between Rs 8,000 and Rs 33,000. The watch is jointly designed by Swiss designer Laurent Rufenacht and Titan's in-house design adviser Michael Foley and assembled by Time Arc, Switzerland.

"Xylys is targeted at the modern, discerning and brand conscious consumer," he added.

According to Ghai, the Rs 10,000-Rs 40,000 price segment in watches is showing a strong growth and is estimated to be of Rs 140 crore, in which Titan is looking at garnering 15 per cent share. Brands like Tissot or some variants of Citizen are present in this segment.

Ghai said the company is also adding to its distribution network by adding to the World of Titan showrooms and also increasing the number of outlets. Titan is looking at opening the flagship outlets in all noted malls and wants to take the number of showrooms to over 270 by the end of 2007-08, he said.

Titan sold 2.4 million watches in 2005-06 and earned a revenue of Rs 450 crore. The target this year is to sell 2.9 million watches to reach Rs 540 crore revenue. The company's sales during the first nine months of the current financial year was Rs 1530 crore as against Rs 1481 crore for the entire 2005-06, he said.

Titan has two main businesses - jewellery which is sold under the Tanishq brand, and watches which has three strategic business units - Titan, Sonata and Fast Track, which also looks after licensed business such as Tommy Hilfiger watches.