Framed for growth: Titan's Titan Eye+ has set sights on booming market

Company has the advantage of Titan's network but it needs to scale up its online presence

It is known mostly for wristwatches and jewellery through Tanishq, but for the last decade the Tata-owned Titan Company’s Titan Eye+ brand has been targeting a growing market for the branded eyewear and accessories market. The last financial year saw the business log its best ever financial performance, according to company reports. Titan Eye+, for the year ending March 31, 2022, reported total sales of around Rs 800 crore and profit before tax of Rs 38 crore in FY2022 compared to sales of Rs 565 crore and PBT of Rs 8 crore in FY2021 in 2021. Titan Eye+ also recorded a PBT of Rs 57 crore in the six months ending September this year.

The eyewear industry is expected to be worth $9.69 billion by 2027 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.90 per cent, according to reports. Titan officials say that the organised eyewear market in India is worth Rs 15,000 crore, with several players under different brands.

Saumen Bhaumik, chief executive officer of eyecare, Titan Company, aims to have 1,000 Titan Eye+ stores by March 2023, meaning a growth of some 15 percent. The company has stores in 400 cities and the retail expansion will involve a capex of around Rs 45 crore. Bhaumik says.

The new stores—franchise- and company-owned—will open nationwide but with deeper distribution in top 20 cities.

Eye-care business

To strengthen its presence in the prescribed eyewear business, the company plans to woo Gen Z with Fastrack, a Titan-owned watch and sunglasses brand that also makes spectacles, and continue to focus on Millennials and Gen X through Titan Eye+.

If a spectacle frame is the delivery device then lenses are the cure in the eyewear business and Titan is focused on that part of the business.

Titan built an eyewear manufacturing unit in Chikkaballapur, Karnataka, around 2011. In 2019, the company acquired a new, larger space in the same location and tweaked the unit, Bhaumik says. There are also satellite units in Kolkata and Noida; 2023 will see another one open in Mumbai.

The Chikkaballapur factory can make 1.5 million pairs of lenses and 600,000 frames annually. “Reducing imports is part of the plan and we are already catering to about 50 percent of our needs--which used to be less than 10 percent a few years back and looking ahead hope to reach 80 percent,” he says.

Sanjay Tekchandani, the owner of Vision2020 Complete Eye Care Centre in Bandra, Mumbai, says that until a decade ago there were few organised players in the business. Lawrence & Mayo had some 10 stores in the Western region, the company’s headquarters. Himalaya Opticals was popular in east India.

The business has changed. Lenskart is now India’s biggest eyewear brand and its digital and offline channels give it wide recall, Tekchandani says. Lenskart plays at price points at the bottom and below the middle of the pyramid. It started as an online service and then went bricks-and-mortar--Tata /Titan will have to do the opposite.

The Titan advantage

Titan Eye’s advantage is that it can leverage the conglomerate’s network and challenge is that its online presence isn’t widespread. “Their brand name is a massive advantage and if combined with quality and service can push them to the top given that eye-care business is also a lot about touch and feel, '' he says.

Bhaumik says that online is an ongoing game for his company and that “in our case which is a business that requires physical measurement and people need testing and have to look and see a frame can’t work without the third dimension.” After the end of Covid-19 lockdowns, customers are visiting stores and offline traction is growing. “It's also important to note that there is no remote online testing system that is 100 percent accurate yet for vision.”

Mom-and-pop stores have a neighbourhood connection and give customers what they want. “Our target network is basically just two or three kilometres around us and once a client base is built the business becomes a repeat one,” he says.

Bhaumik concurs and says that anytime a customer has to travel more than a few kilometres or 20 minutes it becomes a challenge.

Optical companies' profit margins are robust. Tekchandani says that on-average profit for glasses and spectacles can be as high as 100 percent but overheads like rent for retail space, optometrist salaries are increasing. “The other issue is that the turnaround for buying products again is around 18 months which is a long window for sales.”

What makes a successful store for optical products and eye-care? “It’s all about where you position the product and whom the customer is in terms of price point, format, and whether it's fashion or medical-related products that are being sold,” Tekchandani says.

Titan’s stores offer customers over 1000 frames and sunglasses across brands that include Titan, Fastrack, RayBan, Vogue, Oakley, Tommy Hilfiger. They have premium labels such as Cartier, and Dior. Frames start at Rs 599, while high-quality lenses start at Rs 399, and contact lenses from Bausch and Lomb, Alcon, and Johnson & Johnson.

What is the big challenge for Titan’s eyewear business then?

“It’s one of achieving scale” Bhaumik says, and that people are increasingly using glasses, reading spectacles and lenses but scale doesn’t come like in jewellery for example. “People don't during festivals, for example, go get their eyes checked or buy a pair of spectacles and every store does plateau after growth which is recurring, so getting scale is an industry challenge.”