Titan Company is expecting a growth of 20 percent in the second half of the financial year 2020, said S Subramaniam, CFO of company, adding that "things have started to improve now" and "festival season will be quite decent".

As India grapples with an economic slowdown, consumer sentiment has taken a big hit.

“Things have started to improve now, at least from August we have started seeing growth back. I am talking as an industry itself and not just about Titan. Titan did quite decent in August,” said Subramaniam in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

“We saw a significant dip in second half of June and whole of July led by the sharp increase in gold prices,” he added.

Talking about gold prices further, Subramaniam said, “Whenever there are fluctuations in the gold price, people tend to wait and buy when they have no other option but to buy. Now that the wedding season has started, the festival season is starting, we are starting to see people come back and buy.”

“Somewhere there is also a thought that now gold prices may be going up for some time and the conversation that we are hearing is that it’s an asset class that people may want to invest in as well and therefore, we are hopeful that the festival season will be quite decent,” Subramaniam added.

On the business front, he said, “Our focus is more on getting topline, getting the market share gains that we are working towards, the rest actually will follow.”

However, Q2 will not look good due to decline in July, Subramaniam said. "We are looking at 12-13 percent growth for watches this quarter."

Speaking about millennials, the CFO said, “Jewellery is clearly not something which they buy the way their mothers bought. However, having said that, we also see them buying more of products at lower purchase point, more in the nature of accessories.”

First Published:Sept 13, 2019 2:38 PM IST