OPINION: Is India the answer to mechanical watchmaking’s long-term future?

December 16, 2025 Robin Swithinbank

With European economies largely in the doldrums and the perception from some quarters that luxury in the traditional Western world is at saturation point, renowned watch writer and podcast host Robin Swithinbank asks: Is India the answer to mechanical watchmaking’s long-term future?

How long have we been hearing that India is the next big thing in luxury? Years? Maybe it’s decades. Some say it already is, of course. Others, don’t count your chickens. As it is, the basic view is that as the country’s population booms, so too does its middle class, and so too therefore will its consumption of luxury. The hypothesis is logical. Even with its fast-growing population, India’s per capita GDP is projected to double between now and 2030. But it might also be wrong.

At least, it might be wrong that India’s consumption of Western luxury will boom. In the West, we’re inclined to assume newly minted societies will be able to think of nothing better than to spend their money on all our nice stuff. The cars and handbags, clothes and shoes, wines and whiskies, and of course, the watches. Why wouldn’t they? That’s what happened in the Middle East. And in China. And our stuff’s the best. Surely India won’t be able to resist our Louboutins, our Loro Pianas and our Lamborghinis? Right?

Well, I’m not so sure. In September, I went to India for the first time. In Bengaluru, Bangalore as was, I visited Titan Company, part of the giant Indian conglomerate Tata that owns all manner of things, from Jaguar Land Rover to Air India. Titan alone brings in revenues of $6.45 billion a year, chiefly from jewellery, eyewear and watches.

Like many others in the watch business, I’d only been vaguely aware of Titan before it introduced the Nebula Jalsa earlier this year. It’d had a couple of GPHG nominations, and its Edge watches had picked up the odd Red Dot Design Award. But touting a watch at $46,000, with an in-house tourbillon and a hand-painted dial, it had suddenly become hard to miss. A high-end métiers d’art watch that costs more than a Royal Oak – made in India?

Titan invited me to its headquarters to see what lay behind one of the most interesting launches of the year and it was, frankly, eye-opening. The business is expanding rapidly. In April, Titan said it had produced around 3,000 mechanical watches. By the time of my visit, that figure had increased to around 11,000. A near 400 per cent uplift in six months. While impressive, those figures are dwarfed by its overall output. Titan makes 15 million watches a year, mostly mall-style quartz pieces, and rising. For context, that’s the same as every brand in Switzerland put together, and its volumes are in free fall.

While there, I also learned of Titan’s five-year plan to increase substantially its presence in what it calls the “bridge to luxury” category of watches priced $2,500 to $6,000, territory currently bossed by TAG Heuer,Breitling, Longines, Tudor and Seiko, among others.

And this is where it gets interesting. Titan knows its domestic market. More importantly, that domestic market knows Titan. It’s a colossus in India. A household name, loved like Casio or Swatch here. Gifted on milestone occasions. Advertised on billboards at airports and in town centres. And available everywhere. There are more than 3,200 Titan stores across the country.

The company can also afford to go big. As its head C K Venkataraman told me, Titan has deep pockets. It doesn’t need further investment from Tata to ramp up its activities, and it doesn’t need Western buyers to prove its plans to move upmarket are workable. It owns the manufacturing sites, it has the people, it has the distribution, it has the points of sale – and it has the customers. It can afford to make a mistake.

On paper, what might happen from here is a confluence of factors. I think it can be this simple: as Indians who love Titan get richer they will buy Titan’s more expensive watches.

If that’s logical, does this also mean they won’t buy luxury watches from this side of the world? It would be foolish to say that, and I don’t think I am, but what I am saying is that those brands are likely to have to fight much harder than they did to establish a foothold in the Middle East or China, where they’ve never faced the kind of domestic competition Titan says it’s going to offer. In other words, in India, our nice watches are almost certainly going to have to prove they’re nicer than Titan’s.

If that’s one theoretical outcome of Titan’s mission, it opens the door to another. What happens when Titan decides to bring its luxury watches out West? For now, the company says its international ambitions lie some way over the horizon. It wants to win in India first. But let’s think about it anyway. If Titan were to come here, what might that do?

Right now, not much. Having toured Titan’s factories and handled its product, I can say it’s still charging about in League One while Europe’s finest stroke it about in the Champion’s League. Its watches are solid enough, but they lack the brand, design and mechanical sophistication expected by mature luxury markets.

But I also got the impression that could change. Titan is learning fast. The Jalsa’s in-house tourbillon may not yet be finished like that found in a Breguet, but it took less than two years to get it from lightbulb to delivery, and along the way it successfully engaged the Swiss company Timeforge for concept validation. Timeforge, while we’re here, is behind Vanguart’s high-concept, six-figure watches.

Since my visit, Titan has introduced its first watch with a wandering hours, a complication most recently associated with Audemars Piguet. I didn’t see the Titan Stellar 3.0 in the flesh, but I’d imagine that again, the quality comparison doesn’t stack up. But then neither does the price. Titan’s costs around $2,000; AP’s was just under $60,000. Although come to think of it, the Stellar 3.0’s case was an impressive mix of crystallised titanium and bronze. It’s hardly a sexed-up Sekonda.

That prompts a third theory, and this one I can’t shake, either. And while it’s a wild stab in the dark, it might be the biggest of the three.

Think of this. The entry-level luxury watch segment Titan’s going into is in the fight of its life at the moment. Making watches in Europe that sell at these prices while protecting margins has become incrementally more difficult, with brands blighted by soaring costs on materials, labour and energy. Sustaining spiralling marketing plans is a killer, too.

So I put it to Venkataraman that India – led by Titan and perhaps in competition with China – might one day become the engine room of large-scale mechanical watchmaking as European makers, led by the Swiss, shrink volumes and raise prices in pursuit of protecting profits and keeping shareholders happy. Could that happen? He wasn’t sure, although his vision hadn’t stretched that far. He retires at the end of this year, and that mission would be someone else’s to shape and execute. But put it this way. He didn’t rule it out.

Could India become a global hub for high-volume, mid-priced luxury mechanical watches? It’s an idea. It could take 25 years before it’s proved. Or 50. It might also never happen. India is still organising. But one thing seems certain. While old Western civilisations toil and new economies come to the boil, for the mechanical watch industry, India and Titan are worth keeping an eye on.