Titan Industries is now Titan Company Limited

Company will also make foray into helmet and fragrances sector this year

 

Titan Industries today unveiled its new corporate identity by rechristening itself as Titan Company Limited.

It will also make foray into helmet and fragrances sector this year. The city-based company that manufactures and retails watches, jewellery and eyewear, also unveiled its new logo 'Titan Star'.

"We have 120 million customers, whose life we have touched with our products; ...From a watch maker to a watch maker and jeweller, now to a lifestyle company which has largest specialty retail footprint in this country- Titan watches became Titan Industries and now Titan Company Limited," Titan Company Limited MD Bhaskar Bhat told reporters here.

"We wanted to create a strong platform and identity for the company to help us communicate effectively with our many stakeholders. To achieve this objective and more closely reflect the lifestyle segment we operate in, we have changed the name to Titan Company," he added.

Speaking on the product portfolio that the company has to offer, he said, "accessories that include belt, bag, wallet is going to be a big business as we go forward."

Bhat said: "With an intention to bring in expertise of transparency, quality and organisational professionalism to un-organised, under-served and under-penetrated categories, we are exploring helmet and fragrance category."

"There are many we are exploring, only those we find we can create value through the core-competence that company has, we will enter," he added.

Stating that it will take couple of quarters from now to foray into new categories, he said, "In categories that has been mentioned, we don't necessarily manufacture it but we will bring in our engineering expertise to each category to ensure quality is maintained to our standards."

Explaining that capex for the year on the order of magnitude is about Rs 400 crore, Bhat said: "New products don't occupy too much in this; most of it will be manufacturing of our existing categories."

Answering a question about the impact that Titan's jewellery business had to face due to fluctuation in gold prices he said "we are hedged; ...We are a retailer, we don't play on the price of gold, therefore even if there is a cost to hedging we will incur that cost, we will not make money on a rising market nor loose money."

Titan Company Limited (earlier known as Titan Industries Limited), a joint venture between the Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) commenced operations in 1987 under the name Titan Watches Limited.

In 1994, Titan Industries diversified into Jewellery and later into eyewear with Titan Eyeplus.

Titan's sales income for the year 2012-13 was Rs 10,009.05 crore, registering a growth of 14.5 per cent over the previous year.