Titan Company

Titan Company Limited was inaugurated on 26 July 1984 under the name Titan Watches Limited in Chennai.[11] A plant was set up to manufacture quartz analog electronic watches in the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu, Ltd. Industrial area at Hosur. In November 1986, Titan Company and Casio signed a MoU proposing to manufacture 2 million digital and analog-digital watches.[12] In 1989, a satellite case plant was set up in Dehradun, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand at present with a manufacturing capacity of 500,000 watch cases annually.[11]

In September 1993, the company changed its name to Titan Industries Ltd. as it ventured into other range of products other than watches.[13][14]

In 1994, Titan launched its jewellery brand Tanishq.[15]

In 1998, the company launched its watch & accessories brand, Fastrack, targeted at a younger audience in a bid to compete with Timex.[16]

In 2001, Titan launched kids’ watches brand, Dash. The brand saw poor performance and was discontinued in 2003.[17] In 2004, the company entered into an agreement with Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Group, to service the latter's range of watches in India through its customer care centres.[18] In 2005, Fastrack was positioned as an independent accessory brand targeting the urban youth. With the objective to become a fashion brand, Fastrack launched sunglasses in the same year and launched bags, belts and wallets in 2009.[19]

A Titan Octane series watch.

Titan acquired Swiss watch maker Favre-Leuba in 2011 to enter the European market.[20] In 2013, Titan entered the fragrances segment with the brand Skinn.[21] In the same year, it changed its name to Titan Company Ltd.[22] In 2014, it entered into a joint venture with Montblanc to establish its retail stores in India.[23]

In 2016, Titan opened prescription lens manufacturing facilities in Noida, Kolkata, and Mumbai to improve its order processing time.[24] In 2018, Titan merged its jewellery brand, Gold Plus targeted at customers in South India with Tanishq to establish the brand's presence in South.[25]

Taneira is an ethnic wear brand from Titan that retails hand-woven sarees from different weaving clusters of India.[26]  The brand was launched in 2016.  The first retail store was opened in Bengaluru in 2017 with more stores followed in New Delhi and Hyderabad.[27]

In 2016, Titan entered the wearable devices market by introducing its smartwatch, Juxt, made through a collaboration with Hewlett Packard.[28] In 2017, the company launched a fitness tracker, named Gesture Band under its youth accessories brand, Fastrack.[29] In the same year, it invested $3 million in a Singapore based wearable tech company, CoveIoT.[30] In 2018, the company added new fitness tracker bands. The company had a 7.4% market share in the wearable devices market as of 2018.[31]

A Sonata wrist watch.

The watches division comprises brands Fastrack, Sonata, Raga, Octane and Xylys. In 2011, the company secured licence for marketing and distribution of Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Boss watches.[32] Favre Leuba was incorporated in 2012. In 2018, the division accounted for ₹2,126 crore in revenue which was 10% of the total of the company.[33]

In 2007, Titan Industries forayed into the fashion accessories industry with the launch of sunglasses, an Rs 330-crore market. It introduced Titan Eye+ that has a wide range of frames, contact lenses, prescription eyewear, and sunglasses.[34] The division accounted for ₹415 crore in FY 2016-17 maintaining a stable growth of 8%.

Xerxes Desai started the brand Tanishq in 1995. Zoya was launched in the luxury segment, while Mia, a sub-brand was under Tanishq for work-wear jewellery. Titan's total revenue grew 20.44% in 2017-18 to ₹15,656 crore, of which jewellery sales fetched ₹13,036 crore.[35] In 2016, Titan invested in CaratLane who reported a turnover of ₹290 crore in FY 2017-18.

In 2013, Titan launched six variants of perfume in the Indian perfume market under the brand name ‘Skinn’. They collaborated with world-renowned perfumers including Alberto Morillas and Olivier Pescheux.[36]
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