Titan is stepping up its mechanical watchmaking capabilities as it seeks to build a larger presence in the premium end of India’s watch market, targeting a 25% share of the segment above ₹25,000, according to Kuruvilla Markose, chief executive officer of Titan’s Watches Division.
“We have some distance to go to get there, and we’ll keep working on it through the portfolio,” Markose told Mint.
The push comes with the launch of Titan’s Vetra-branded Titan Automatics collection, as the company moves further upmarket while keeping mechanical watches within a relatively accessible price range. Priced at ₹48,000-55,000, the movements are based on Titan’s 7,000-series mechanical platform and branded Vetra 7.
That shift is already visible in the division’s financial performance. Titan’s consolidated Watches business reported total income of ₹1,543 crore in the June quarter, up 21% from ₹1,273 crore a year earlier. Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (Ebit) rose to ₹295 crore from ₹287 crore, taking the segment margin to 19.1%. Analogue watches grew in the mid-20% range, while smartwatches declined in the single digits. The company attributed the growth to premiumisation and continued consumer preference for analogue timepieces.
Markose said Titan’s ambition extends beyond the Vetra range. The company has been developing mechanical movements in-house since 2010, but believes changing consumer behaviour and rising disposable incomes have created a larger market for more sophisticated watches. “We’re not late for India. We’re ahead of the curve for India,” he said. Titan is also targeting high horology, including tourbillons that counter the effects of gravity on a watch’s accuracy, and is building global recognition for Indian mechanical movements.
“Just like people today say a watch has a Citizen Miyota or Seiko movement, an Indian movement from an Indian manufacturer should also be seen as an expression of excellence,” he said.
Titan’s premium watch push
The company plans to push the technology beyond the 72-hour power reserve. Markose said Titan plans to develop movements with 80-, 120-, and eventually 180-hour reserves, while improving accuracy towards COSC-level capability, meaning a watch keeps time as reliably as a smartphone. Titan is also preparing an ultra-slim mechanical version of its Edge watch, with a movement 2.2 mm thick and a watch thickness of 5.7 mm.
At the higher end, Titan has used limited-edition tourbillon watches to demonstrate its capabilities. A Jalsa tourbillon was priced at ₹45 lakh, while another was priced at around ₹25 lakh. Markose said the next challenge is to make high-horology products, including tourbillons, available at more accessible price points.
However, the company’s ambitions are hampered by gaps in its domestic manufacturing ecosystem. Titan makes several components in-house, but still imports some, such as the hairspring that regulates a mechanical watch. Markose said only a handful of manufacturers globally make hairsprings, and Titan does not see itself making them immediately, although it is working towards making its own assortments. Some components, such as tourbillon cages, are also sourced externally.
Building the required talent is another challenge. Markose said Titan has largely developed its horological talent in-house rather than hiring from outside. “Most of our horologists are people we’ve developed in-house, built over time. We’ve exposed them to skills, learning and technology transfers to help them build their capability,” he said. “We haven’t gone out and hired a lot of horologists. None so far. It’s all homegrown talent that we’ve built.”
Innovation in movements and design
Titan also wants to use its scale to develop a model suited to higher volumes. The company makes about 20 million watches a year, most of them quartz, and Markose said mechanical watches cannot all be produced by hand. “Not all of this can be handmade. Some of it needs to be assembled on a modern assembly line,” he said.
Markose said is looking at the Japanese model of combining precision manufacturing with higher-volume assembly. “The Japanese do much larger volumes than the Swiss, and they use a lot more high-tech, precision manufacturing and assembly line processes to make their movements and products, whereas the Swiss take pride in being hand assembled or handmade,” he said. “For a country like India, and for our ambitions to cater to other parts of the globe, we’d need things like manufacturing execution systems, automation and so on. All of that is part of the pipeline, part of the plans.”
Over time, Titan wants Vetra to become more than an internal movement platform. Markose said the company would eventually like other manufacturers and to use Titan movements. “Over time, we’d also like to open this up to other manufacturers and watchmakers, to use Titan movements,” he said.