While every Indian knows Titan as one of India’s most successful consumer brands, not many know its extremely serendipitous history. Xerxes Desai from Tata Press was looking for new business opportunities for the group when he chanced upon the idea of watch manufacturing in 1977.

After almost a decade of tenaciously navigating through HMT’s hegemony, reluctance of the Swiss to part with watch-making technology, the License Raj and the Reserve Bank of India’s stringent ForEx norms, Titan was formed as a joint venture between Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) and the Tatas. That explains the name TITAN. ‘TI’ stands for Tata Industries and ‘TAN’ for Tamil Nadu.

Titan Managing Director Bhaskar Bhat has been with the company since 1983 and has been at the helm since 2002. He will hang up his boots on September 30 this year, after making the watch manufacturing major tick for more than 35 years.

Bhat is upbeat about the future of the group and expects it to record a revenue of Rs 53,000 crore by financial year 2023. Jewellery segment would contribute Rs 40,000 crore of the target, while Rs 7,000 crore is expected from watches. The remainder would be from Titan’s eyewear business, which could fetch Rs 1500 crore in revenues and Rs 800 crore each from the fragrance business and the latest addition, sarees. Our export business could grow also grow to Rs 3000 crore by FY23,” the MD noted.

After completing 35 years at Titan, Bhat is all set for his retirement. “I would like to just chill,” says Bhat, about his future plans.

A journey through time

1977 – Licences opened for private players to assemble watches; Tatas interested in watch-making.

1984 – An agreement signed between TIDCO and Tata-backed Questar to set up Titan Watches

1987 – Opens first store in Bangalore, releases path-breaking advertising with the signature tune

1996 – The company forays into jewellery, first Tanishq store inaugurated in Chennai.

2007 - Eyewear launched under Titan Eyeplus brand.

2015 - Titan's 1000th store opens in Indira Nagar, Bengaluru.

2017 – The firm launches Taneira sarees, its newest brand

2019- Titan’s market cap crosses Rs 1 lakh crore

Interesting facts

Titan’s iconic theme tune is taken from Mozart’s 25th Symphony and recreated by many artistes including the ‘Mozart of Madras’ AR Rahman.

During 1980s, when the Titan management had to travel to Europe for official purposes, the RBI sanctioned a mere $100 per day as foreign travel expenses.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das was the chairman of Titan from 2006 to 2008.

From the initial batch of Titan watches manufactured in December 1986, JRD Tata was gifted a watch. To the embarrassment of the Titan team, the Quartz watch which was given to Tata was not working. A thorough check revealed that a particular batch of batteries had been on the shelf too long which made the watches go slow/stop working altogether.

Titan was the first to introduce Caratmeter in Indian jewellery shops to measure purity of gold.

Investors’ darling

The company’s revenue and PAT have compounded at 16 percent and 20 percent respectively from inception till March 2019.

Titan share price has compounded at 48 percent for the last 16 years, outpacing gold that has grown at a CAGR of 12 percent.

Basically, Re 1 invested in gold in 2003 is now worth Rs 7 while the same rupee invested in Titan stock would be worth Rs 500 now.

TITAN vs GOLD

IN 2003

Titan share price – Rs 2.5

Gold (10 gram) – Rs 5,600

IN 2008

Titan share price – Rs 56

Gold (10 gm) - Rs12,500

IN 2019

Titan share price – Rs 1250

Gold (10 gm) – Rs 32,700

First Published:Jun 6, 2019 3:41 PM IST