Youngsters are seldom seen wearing wrist watches these days, while their parents and grandparents continue to sport them through sheer force of habit. In such a scenario, watches and jewellery company Titan Co Ltd is set to re-invent itself to become more relevant to the needs of its core target audience — the Millenials (aged between 21-35 years). If all goes to plan, Titan will launch a range of 10-12 smart watches in different designs and colours with multiple functionalities during the holiday season this December.
A 12-member Technology Innovation Cell called Innovedge has been working along with the 37-member Design Studio and the watch movement manufacturing team on the smart watches programme over the last 18 months. The prototypes they have come up with are currently being piloted among a select set of users.
“We will offer consumers a choice of 10-12 smart watches in sporty designs, in different materials (titanium, plastic, etc), colours and features by the year-end,” said HG Raghunath, CEO, Titan Watches & Accessories.
“The idea is to make a watch more useful to consumers by offering multiple functionalities, such as triggering crisis alerts for safety and security in the case of working women and senior citizens; connectivity to mobile phones for messages/voice alerts; wellness and health monitoring, etc,” he added.
Expansion
Titan currently dominates the organised watch market in the ₹800 to ₹3,000 price range and is now looking to dominate the premium watch market in the ₹5,000 to ₹25,000 price range, a fast growing space.
For this, the company will add 120 watch stores (World of Titan and Fastrack stores) to its existing network of 550 stores across the country. The new stores will come up in Tier 2 and 3 cities like Haldwani, Gorakhpur, Indore, Belgaum, Davangere, Tirunelveli, Nagarcoil and Gangtok this fiscal.
The Watch division raked in ₹1,790 crore in FY14, registering 6.9 per cent growth with the sale of 15 million watches.
“We expect watches and accessories to contribute 20-23 per cent of Titan’s overall revenue over the next few years” said Raghunath.
Of the ₹5,300-crore Indian watch market that is growing at 6-7 per cent a year, 50 per cent is in the unorganised sector. Titan has been the market leader with over 50 per cent share in the organised watch market since the last 14 years.