Titan to hike watch prices up to 20% on foreign exchange, gold hit

Titan Industries, the watch, eyewear and jewellery maker, is looking to hike watch prices by 4-20% across brands to safeguard margins.

“Ideally, we would have avoided more than one price increase in a year, but we have to just to safeguard our margins,” Ajoy Chawla, senior vice- president, watch division, said.

The company had effected a 5% price hike on Titan brand of watches in April. For its Swiss-made brand Xylys, too, the company had hiked prices by 8%.

With consumers restricting discretionary spends, Chawla said there has been some slowdown in sales of watches in the ‘lower price’ segment of Rs2,000 and below.

“Apart that we are seeing double-digit volume growth in watches priced Rs5,000 and above,” he said.

Prices of Nebula, Titan’s line of gold watches, will be raised 15-20% because of dearer yellow metal.

With effective landed price of Swiss-made watches rising in India due to currency fluctuations, Chawla said, prices of its Xylys watches will see a ‘significant’ hike, but post-Diwali.

While he did not give any guidance on price increase on flagship brand Titan, analysts said the company has planned a 4% price hike.