Timex Corp, the biggest selling watchmaker in the United States, said on Thursday it planned to increase its outsourcing of watches and parts from its Indian unit but did not say by how much.
Connecticut-based Timex, maker of Nautica and Timberland watches, now buys 50,000 watches and components from its Indian unit, Timex Watches Ltd, that are shipped to eastern Europe, Mexico and the Philippines.
"Timex already sources components and watches from India -- only it has been very little but the potential is immense," Frank Sherer, senior vice president of human resources at Timex Corp, told Reuters on the sidelines of a product launch.
He declined to say when Timex would ramp up its Indian outsourcing or by how much. But "there is a very strong local watch industry here and Timex's strategy is to leverage that (engineering base)", he said.
Sherer said Timex, which sells more than a million watches in India costing between 1,000 and 5,000 rupees targeted at the nation's burgeoning middle class, now plans to introduce high-end brands like Opex in India in the second half of 2003.
The price for Opex watches will start at Rs 8,000.
"The market here has developed rapidly as Indian purchasing power in growing," Sherer said.
The Rs 1,500-crore (Rs 15-billion) Indian watch industry sells 3.1 crore (31 million) units each year but nearly two-thirds of watches sold annually are made in the unorganised or "grey market".