By IANS
Chennai : Following the success of its youth brand Fastrack, watch maker Titan Industries is mulling a re-entry into the children’s segment.
“We are considering such an option,” Arun Narayan, the company’s head of the retailing division, told IANS.
Saying the segment was important given the increase in purchasing power, he said: “Far from being a pester power, children in the age group of 8-15 enjoy more persuasive power in deciding the brands their family should buy.”
According to indications given to retailers, Titan will be soon coming out with a range of children’s watches, a segment it exited couple of years ago.
“We earlier sold children’s watches under the brand Dash. We had to discontinue owing to various reasons,” said Narayan.
According to a salesperson in a city Titan showroom, Dash, made of plastics, had issues like fading colours and inability to withstand rough handling.
In addition, the company seems to have felt Dash retailed in the price band of Rs.300 upwards did not fit well with other ranges that were priced higher.
Good times continue to tick for the Titan Industries’ watch division that crossed Rs.10 billion revenue in FY08.
The division logged 29 percent growth while watch as a category grew only by 5 percent, Narayan added.
In the 35 million units per annum Indian wristwatch market, the company has a brand for all other customer categories, except children.
The company’s high volume Sonata is retailed in the range of Rs.500-Rs.1,300, Titan (Rs.1,125-Rs.8,500), Fastrack (Rs.995-Rs.2,600), Raga (Rs.2,250-Rs.8,000), Nebula (Rs.18,000-Rs.95,000), Xylus (Rs.9,000-Rs.30,000), Hugo Boss (Rs.15,000-Rs.50,000) and Tommy Hilfiger (Rs.4,500-Rs.8,000).
Sonata and Titan continued to be the largest brand in terms of volume and value respectively last year. The company sold four million Sonatas and three million Titan brand watches.
In terms of growth, Fastrack grew by a whopping 50 percent last fiscal while the ladies watch range Raga Crystals too grew well last fiscal.
Looking forward, Narayan said the watch division’s target was to grow by 30 percent. Brands like Sonata and Titan were expected to grow by 30 percent and Fastrack by 40 percent.
The target is expected to be achieved by expanding the retail network by 67 showrooms to 300 and inducing people to go for impulse purchase of watches.
Titan Industries plans to create the impulse to buy a wrist watch by coming out with what Narayan calls as collection approach – launching watches in different designs.
Last year the company launched 17 collections including the Heritage range. Under its Raga and Fastrack brands, the company introduced three collections attracting the ladies and the youth segments.