Titan takes 5-6% sales hit due to demonetisation

Titan has taken a five per cent hit in sales of its watches and accessories following demonetisation of high-value currencies but is taking initiatives to hopefully recover the lost ground by March-end, a senior company official said today.
Titan Watches and Accessories CEO, S Ravi Kant told PTI here that the unit had taken a 25 per cent hit in the first week after the November 8 announcement on demonetisation.
Consolidated hit so far is around 5-6 per cent, he said.
"Impact of demonetisation is wearing off slowly now. Our retail stores are slowly recovering wheras the impact is being still felt in smaller towns and dealers where almost all the customer transactions used to be in cash," he said.

He noted that small dealers did not even had card swiping machines.
In Titan's retail stores, sales by credit card were about 50-52 per cent before the November 8 decision but this figure has now crossed 70 per cent mark. "In retail stores, card sales have really gone up quite a lot."

Noting that Titan had launched new products in recent times, had good wedding gifts and kicked off an end-of-season sale offering up to 40 per cent discount, he said, "All those things are helping (improve sales). May be they are helping in overcoming the impact also".
"We are doing everything possible to overcome the hit that we have got so far. We are hoping that we can recover lost ground before the year-end," Ravi Kant said.

"We are unveiling many new campaigns. So, we are not holding back in any way, either in advertising or launch of new products. We are hoping that we will recover the lost ground. We are doing many things to activate the market".
Meanwhile, Titan today inaugurated its revamped store at Jubilee Hills here, bringing together its retail chains -- World of Titan and Helios under one roof.
The new integrated store, sprawling over 3500 sq ft, marks the largest exclusive watch store for Titan Company Limited, the lifestyle company from the Tata Group, according to a company statement.