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Vipin V. Nair

Kochi , Jan. 28

MORE and more Indians are finding the sparkle of crystal irresistible. Five years after it set up its first shop in India, Swarovski, the Austria-based crystal major, today has 31 shops in India, selling a range of exquisite crystals, jewelleries and accessories.

"We will have 40-50 points of sale in India in the next two years," said Mr V. Shiv Kumar, Country Manager, Consumer Goods Business of Swarovski India Pvt Ltd.

Mr Kumar says that sales of the company's products are on the rise in India, notwithstanding their expensive price tags. "In 2004, we grew by 70 per cent over the previous year," he said. Sales in India today is as much as that in Thailand, where Swarovski started operating 15 years ago.

"We don't sell any old products in India. We launch our range simultaneously everywhere and the showroom in Kochi and the one in Chicago will have the same products," he said.

Swarovski is very choosy about the locations of its shops, as it wants to give the same look and feel across the world. "Our focus will be the top 15 cities in India," Mr Kumar said. So the company will look at setting up more shops in the cities where it currently has outlets.

Set up in 1895 by Daniel Swarovski, who invented a machine to cut crystal to perfection, Swarovski is a Euro 1.8-billion (as in 2003) company with global sales points. The company still has only one factory at Wattens.

It usually takes about three to five years to design and develop a piece. Mr Kumar said Swarovski follows a unique way of selling its products, and don't go for large-scale marketing campaigns.

"When customers come to a shop and see a piece, they imagine their house where they will keep it, or the taste of a friend whom they want to gift it. They a need place to think, rather than a place where sales people are making sales pitch."

The company has a collectors' society — Swarovski Crystal Society — to bring together crystal lovers. Members of this society, numbering around 5,00,000 across the world, will get exclusive pieces that are not available for others. There are over 2,000 members in India in this society.

Mr Kumar said Swarovski follows an almost similar pricing across the world. In India crystal products attract import duties of 42 per cent.

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