Titan Industries to invest Rs 10 cr in new plant

Titan Industries is investing Rs 10 crore in setting up a new plant in Pantnagar for manufacturing 3 million watches per annum.

Currently the company has a plant in Hosur where it manufactures around 11 million watches. It also has assembly units in Baddi, Dehradun, Roorkee, among other locations.

Bhaskar Bhat, managing director of Titan Industries, told Business Standard, “We are looking at closing this fiscal at around Rs 4,700 crore, up from Rs 3,800 crore in the last fiscal. Our sales are growing and setting up a new plant is in sync with increasing demand.”

Titan, which saw its exports drop by around 10 per cent last year from 15-20 per cent earlier, is looking at markets like Vietnam, Malaysia, and other countries which are less impacted by the downturn.

The company is focussing on its jewellery business, which currently contributes around 70 per cent to its overall revenues.

“Our jewellery business is growing at 30 per cent. We will also add 50 new stores this year for our watches. Currently we have around 287 stores,” Bhat said.

The company’s profits trebled in the third quarter (Q3) of the current fiscal to touch Rs 78.35 crore, up from Rs 23.52 crore in the corresponding previous.

Its jewellery income in Q3 was Rs 1054.52 crore, a growth of 34 per cent over previous year’s Rs 788.69 crore.

The watches business recorded income of Rs 240.94 crore, up from Rs 193.11 crore in the corresponding previous, a growth of 25 per cent.