Titan Industries, which produces personal accessories like watches, jewellery, sunglasses and prescription eye wear, is set to open a new watch assembly facility in Pantnagar in Uttarakhand. The facility could start operations by February or March 2010.
The latest facility would be the company’s fifth manufacturing facility with the other four situated at Dehradun, Hosur, Roorkee and
Baddi. The facility is expected to have a manufacturing capacity of around five million watches per annum. Titan might invest around Rs 10-12 crore in the facility. The company has a manufacturing capacity of 11 million units a year.
Holding a 68 per cent market share in the organised watch market in India, the company is looking to extend its retail presence in the country. It is making plans to add 10 Helios stores in the next 12 months. Helios is its multi-brand watch chain and the company seeks to house premium international watch brands like Versace, Seiko, Movado, Hugo Boss, Citizen, Fossil, DKNY, Nina Ricci, Roberto Cavalli, Esprit and Tommy Hilfiger.
The company has opened one Helios store, which is in Bangalore.
It is also looking to open large format stores for jewellery in Mumbai and Kolkata. In all, it has 284 World of Titan stores. Bhaskar Bhat, managing director of Titan Industries, said the company is seeing a 15 per cent growth for watches in the present financial year and is seeing a 30 per cent growth for its jewellery.