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Titan plans increased spread via low-end launches, buyouts

K Giriprakash

Titan Industries plans to introduce low-priced watches to further penetrate into the rural market, and at the same time introduce its highest priced watch at the high end even as it is looking for acquisition of brands to expand its market base.

Titan's lowest priced watch is around Rs 250 while its highest priced watch goes with a price tag of around Rs 32,000. "We want to penetrate the rural market further while at the same time we could introduce newer models which are priced higher than the current high-end watches," Bijou Kurien, vice-president (sales & marketing), Titan Industries Ltd, said.

"We are on the lookout for acquisition of an existing brand," Kurien said. He said acquisition would be carried out to expand our market base.

Titan has an overall market share of around 50 per cent, with the top two brands in the country -- Titan and Sonata ranges -- under its fold.

Kurien said Titan had not fully penetrated the rural market. Hence, it is examining a proposal to launch a low-priced watch. He said Titan watches are available in 1,400 towns across the country.

Kurien said there was a possibility of introducing newer ranges under the Nebula brand which would be positioned to cater to the high end of the market, with a price tag of above Rs 32,000.

The company has so far sold 6.5 million watches under its four brands -- Titan, Sonata, Dash and Fastrack. Kurien said the company expects to grow at the industry growth rate of around 10 per cent.

Kurien said Titan continuously carries out research on various fronts. These include, getting feedback from customers, retail outlets and distributors. "This enables us to bring in newer varieties, dump some of the existing ones," he said. As the watch industry does not have its own benchmark, Titan benchmarks itself with other services industries.

Kurien said the watch market in the country was huge as only 22 out of every 1,000 Indians own a watch, while in China the ratio was 50 for every 1,000 and in the US the ratio was 400 per 1,000. He said the penetration level is very low and hence Titan sees a huge potential for itself. Its current growth in the domestic market was around 10 per cent while in the international segment it is around 20 per cent. Titan also sells table clocks in two ranges -- basic and synchrony.

"We expect international market to grow at a higher rate than the domestic business," he said. Titan has three subsidiaries abroad including those in London, Dubai and Singapore. Around 10 per cent of its total sales comes from the international market. Titan brand is sold in around 39 countries apart from India.

Titan also sells jewellery under the Tanishq range. It sold a total of 402,041 pieces of jewellery last fiscal, which was 33 per cent higher than the previous year.

Sales turnover of the watch division of Titan Industries grew by 2.2 per cent to Rs 4.53 billion during 2000-01.

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