After a flat year in terms of growth, watchmaker Timex Group India, is devising strategies to widen reach in the country and gain a bigger pie of the organised watch maket. To start with, the company is planning to set up 20 kiosks and stores spanning metro, tier I and tier II cities in the next one year.
“Last year there was a slowdown in all segments except the above Rs 5,000 (price) segment. People who used to buy watches in the Rs 2,000 price bracket are gradually moving up the value chain, to higher priced watches. Overall. we expect a growth of 10 per cent in gross revenue for 2010-11,” said Gopalratnam Kannan, managing director, Timex Group India.
A key growth strategy for the company this year, according to him, is to be more visible to the consumer for which it is planning to set up five retail outlets in the next one month. These stores are expected to come up in Delhi, Ghaziabad and Kolkata. The store expansion will be through the franchisee route which has been the company’s preferred strategy in India. It has 47 stores and 16 kiosks in the country at present.
“Our next level of expansion will be skewed towards the kiosk format,” said Nilanjan Bhattacharya, vice president-sales for Timex Group. The reasoning behind this, according to the company, is that in places like malls, kiosks get better brand visibility, easy access to customer and more importantly translate into lower rentals.
Timex has 12 brands at present which include its flagship brand Timex and other international licencees like Nautica, Versace, Valentino, Salvatore Ferragamo and Guess. India, is learnt to be Timex’s biggest market outside the US. The company said that it has a 10 per cent market share in the organised watch market in India which is said to be around Rs 2,000 crore. The company does not provide specific break-up of revenues from each brand but Timex is learnt to be its highest selling brand.
Timex had entered India in 1992 as Timex Watches, a joint venture with Titan and went solo in 1998. Titan presently dominates the organised watch market with nearly 60 per cent market share. “Each brand has a certain characteristic,” said Kannan on being asked about the competition. “We are projecting ourselves as a brand that offers products in diverse categories like technology, fashion and sports,” he said. Accordingly, it has positioned brands like Timex for technology afficionados, Nautica for sports and Salvatore Ferragamo for the fashion conscious.
In terms of price, the company has consciously positioned itself in various segments to tap different markets. The Timex brand starts at around Rs 600 and goes up to Rs 10,000. The brand is its major growth driver and is expected to be a significant contributor as it expands its presence in tier one and two cities. Nautica is priced from Rs 8,000 to Rs 18,000 while Salvatore Ferragamo, which is its premium brand, is priced between Rs 35,000 and Rs 2,40,000. The company is planning to launch Marc Ecko, the fashion brand sometime in May which is priced in the Rs 5,000 to Rs 12,000 range.
Timex has a manufac-turing facility in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, which has an installed capacity of 2.5 million units per annum.
It manufactures around 1.6 million units per annum. In March 2009, the company had a turnover of Rs 131.96 crore. The promoters hold around 74 per cent of the company while rest is held by the public.