Titan, the fifth largest watch maker in the world, sensing a huge growth potential in the market, plans to expand its manufacturing capacity and retail footprint across the country for its entire range of products, including watches, jewellery and prescription eyewear.

At the launch of a revamped World of Titan showroom here on Wednesday, Bhaskar Bhat, Managing Director of Titan Co, said the company plans to invest over ₹250 crore this year in these projects. Of this, ₹150 crore will go for capacity expansion and the remaining will be spent on retail expansion.

Last year, the company registered only four per cent top line growth with a drop in sales of watches and jewellery. “We guess, more than the inflation, it was the poor consumer sentiment that drove the demand down for these products.” However, in April and May, sales improved, “which is encouraging, and we expect to post a healthy two-digit growth this year”. The company will add another 40 World of Titan stores to its existing 470; 10 more Helios (Titan’s multi-brand watch retail outlets) to the current 50, and 50 Fastrack stores in the current year. Besides, it will also invest close to ₹100 crore in expanding Montblanc boutiques. Titan recently inked a (49:51) joint venture pact with Montblanc which, besides its flagship product pens, sells a range of men’s top-end lifestyle products such as watches, fragrance and eyewear. It has 16 boutiques in India. Bhat said the joint venture will start operations in January next year. Its current turnover is around ₹100 crore, “and we hope we can triple the topline in the next few years as there is a tremendous growth opportunity.”

This will “be a nice experience for us in luxury retailing and to get to know about the sector.” he added.

Bhat said the company would relaunch the Golden Harvest scheme – a monthly payment scheme to buy jewellery – once the RBI clears it.

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