We have not seen an urban demand squeeze this year: Titan’s Suparna Mitra

Bengaluru: The Titan Company has not seen the kind of demand slowdown in urban India this year, unlike the kind witnessed by consumer goods companies and automakers, said Suparna Mitra, Chief Executive Officer, the Watches & Wearables division of the Tata group-company.

In an interaction with DH’s Sonal Choudhary, Mitra spoke about the company’s expanding portfolio as well as increased focus on premiumisation, a trend she says is here to stay.

How does the demand picture look currently, given the urban slowdown being talked about across price points?

We've not really seen any slowdown and maybe it's also because we cater to upper middle and upper classes and I'd say the last six quarters, we had a 19 per cent turnover growth. It is also that the consuming classes have a lot more interest in watches, and there's a revival of interest. We were seeing demand issues at the lower price points but now it has become better. The mass affordable brands Sonata and Fastrack went through demand challenges last year. However, both have picked up this year. 

What does the demand breakup look like between smartwatches, luxury segment and the regular analog watches?

So smart watches were doing really well from 2021-23. This year, there has been a big setback, a lot of corrections and decline. The smartwatch market has declined by about 40 per cent as per International Data Corp (IDC). It's become such a commonality and there's no difference, hence we’re seeing this decline. We hope that by next year, we will see innovations in this space which might help pick up the narrow demand. 

How are the brick and mortar stores doing in times of booming e-commerce demand? Any target that you’ve set for these?

Our retail stores are doing quite well and I think it's because of the experience that we provide, including the after sales experience. We are steadily increasing and we look at a lot of data, including from our own e-commerce brand (Tata Neu). We have 1,200 odd stores, of which we have Fastrack stores, which are for a younger market, and then we have about 700 Titan Worlds, which is mid-premium.

Has there been a change in the Average Selling Price recently or are you looking at it? Also, how ahead are you of the target of adding 4-5 brands to Titan’s portfolio this fiscal?

ASP has been going up steadily over the last, ever since Covid. I am unsure of the percentage growth right now, but it is steadily increasing. In the Helios (Titan’s premium stores) format, we’ve introduced three brands this year - Jupiter, Charriol, and Ernest Burrell. We most likely will be introducing a couple more by the end of this fiscal year.