Titan to step up retail presence

Clocking in on better times, watch and jewellery retailer Titan Industries is planning to step up its retail presence. It plans to add 40 World of Titan stores across India by the end of the current financial year.

Harish Bhat, COO- watches, said, “The last few weekends were encouraging for the company and we will continue to grow and expand our presence.” The company has 274 stores of ‘World of Titan’ spread over 122 cities across the country, including the 15 stores rolled out this year.

Titan, which is expecting 18% growth this fiscal, will invest 10% of its revenue on marketing initiatives.

According to Bhat, the growth will be driven by the wedding and festive season. “We have increased our marketing initiatives to increase footfalls,” he said.

However, Morgan Stanley analysts Hozefa Topiwalla, Girish Achhipalia and Divya Gangahar feel 2010 may be a bad year for Titan. They foresee earnings growth of just 3.6% during the same period. “We expect watch revenue growth to slow to 6% in FY10 (vs our earlier growth expectation of 9.5%),” they said in a report.

It has lined up a slew of marketing initiatives to boost sales, which include ‘Titan Exchange Offer 2009’, which provides customers the opportunity to bring in any old watch, of any make, in any condition, and receive a flat discount of 20% on their purchase of a brand new watch from Titan.

The firm has so far sold 2 lakh watches worth Rs 60 crore post the offer.As a marketing initiative, the Bangalore-headquartered watch maker has launched Titan Magic Card across all its formats in Chennai, Bangalore and Coimbatore. It offers free membership to buyers, a gift coupon and free jewellery wash.