The Hindu Business Line : Rich Indians lap up big-ticket brands

NOT only is the number of `affluent' Indian consumers growing, but a survey has found that wealthy Indians are increasingly adopting the habits of their Asian counterparts and buying big-ticket branded personal items.

In fact, the shopping list of affluent Indians includes high-end items such as digital video cameras, luxury watches ($500+), laptops, designer leather products, LCD/plasma TV, cars and so on, the Synovate PAX media survey found.

According to Mr Amit Adarkar, Director for Synovate in India, the acquisition of big-ticket items to improve self-worth is on an upswing among affluent Indians.

It is not surprising then that a number of international luxury brands are making a beeline for the Indian market. In fact, after the entry of players such as Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Bentley cars, and Porsche among others, the past month saw the launch of Swatch Group's luxury watch brand Breguet and French fashion brand Chanel setting up its first outlet in the country. Breguet watches, incidentally, are priced upwards of Rs 4.5 lakh. Mr Rodolphe Schulthess, Vice President (worldwide sales), Montres Breguet said India was among the top growth markets for the brand.

The survey further found that Indians were brand conscious and willing to spend more for quality. Approximately 56.5 per cent of the affluent Indians surveyed said they preferred well-known brands, in comparison to 46.9 per cent in Singapore and 47.5 per cent in Thailand.

Credit card purchases have also increased phenomenally with monthly spends increasing about 77 per cent to touch $ 466.

Further, over a year ending June 2005, the survey found that business travel had surged 19 per cent and leisure travel at least 71 per cent.

During the period, ownership of mobile phones with Internet had grown from 42 to 44 per cent, and digital video camera ownership had increased from 6 to 12 per cent.

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