The Hindu Business Line : Titan hums the ‘eve’ raga

Bangalore, Aug. 7 After tasting success in the youth market with Fastrack, Titan is now looking to woo the women. Buoyed by an overall growth in the women’s watches segment, the company is bullish on Raga, its exclusive women’s watch brand.

Titan hopes Raga, which was re-launched last year with brand rejig, will double its turnover in two years. Towards this end, the company hopes to launch several thematic collections and unleash a marketing campaign that will see its brand ambassador Rani Mukherjee in a “new look.”

The re-launch of Raga in June last year saw the brand being repositioned as “a sensual and feminine brand closely linked with jewellery” from merely being a time keeper. This “emotional motivation” saw Titan come up with elegant collections such as Raga Desire (inspired by Nature) and Raga Shimmer (stone-studded watches).

A year after its re-launch, the Raga is beginning to see some success. In 2006-07, while Titan’s overall watches segment saw sales of Rs 784 crore, the turnover from the women’s watches segment was Rs 162 crore, of which Raga contributed Rs 120 crore. (Titan also sells women’s watches under the Titan, Fastrack and Sonata brands.) Out of the nine lakh women’s watches sold, Raga accounted for five lakh. While the overall watch portfolio has grown by around 20 per cent over the last one year, Raga has grown by more than 40 per cent, says Mr Harish Bhat, COO – Watches, Titan Industries.

The overall growth in the women’s watches category is also cheering Titan. Although Titan had sensed an opportunity in women’s watches almost 15 years ago (Raga was created in 1992), it is only now that the category is seeing significant growth.

According to Mr Bhat: “About 40 per cent of the watch market is women’s watches (in terms of units sold). Raga addresses the middle to upper middle class segment in the metros and urban areas in the Rs 2,000-4,000 price category. And the size of this segment is 10 million women. Out of this, 8 million are housewives. But penetration is still low — only 68 per cent own a watch; 8 per cent own more than one watch.”

So obviously, there is a huge market waiting to be tapped and Raga seems to be the perfect tune to hum for Titan.

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