Titan Industries Limited, a joint venture between the Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), is planning a capital expenditure of Rs 450 crore in 2013-14 on retail expansion and new manufacturing units, a growth of three times over last year.
In 2012-13, it had spent Rs 150 crore on capital expenditure.
The company, which currently has 953 retail outlets across all its business divisions, plans to open at least 200 outlets for its watch, jewellery, eye wear and fashion accessories business.
It also plans to set up two Greenfield manufacturing plants for watches in Coimbatore and precision engineering in Hosur besides setting up a Karigar centre at Hosur, Bhaskar Bhat, managing director, Titan Industries said.
“We are currently manufacturing 7.6 million watches in Hosur and import high end watch, Xylys from Switzerland. We are now looking at setting up a new plant to manufacture two million mid-range and other high-end watches like Edge and Octane among others in new plant at Coimbatore. We are currently awaiting all clearances and start the work shortly,” Bhaskar Bhat said.
The new plant is scheduled for completion during the fourth quarter of this fiscal.
The company is looking at opening 40 World of Titan stores, 25 Helios stores for multi-brand watches and 60-70 stores for Fastrack watches and accessories. It also plans to another 25 outlets under Tanishq brand and another 45 outlets for Titan Eye+ format, he said adding that except Helios stores all others will be through their franchisee network.
Last year, Titan had opened 126 stores across its network to touch a level of 953 sales outlets. “We are looking at a topline growth of 25% this year across various business segments. While our jewellery business is set to cross the Rs 10,000 crore mark from Rs 8,100 crore last year,” Bhat said.
For the year ended March 2013, Titan Industries reported a 14.3% growth in revenue at Rs 10,213 crore, with jewellery and watches contributing Rs 8,108 crore and Rs 1,675 crore respectively. The other segments of the company that include the eyewear (both Fastrack and Titan Eye Plus) and precision engineering businesses, contributed Rs 414 crore.
Titan Industries, on Wednesday, forayed into sunglass business and launched its new brand – Titan Glares. The company will import a wide range of sunglasses priced between Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 from China and market them through its Eye+ stores. Currently, it runs 228 stores in 79 cities and it plans to expand the network by adding another 45 outlets during the current fiscal.
It has launched over 50 varieties of sunglasses with 100% UV protection and made with materials like magnesium aluminium, carbon fibre, acetate (hand made). It aims to sell 60,000 units during the current fiscal, Ravi Kant, CEO, Eyewear business, Titan Industries said.
Bhat said the company would launch a unified loyalty programme called ‘Encircle’ for its five million customers, wherein they can redeem their bonus points in any Titan retail outlets. The scheme will be launched on June 10, he said.
