After Australian pacer Brett Lee, cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar may be roped in by Timex to endorse its range of global watches in India. Timex India, the Indian arm of global watch brand Timex, is evaluating the use of a celebrity brand ambassador after its contract with Aussie-pacer Brett Lee ended some months ago.
?We are not looking to renew our contract with Brett Lee. We are open to hire other sports stars to endorse Timex in India,? Timex Group India MD VD Wadhwa told FE. On being asked whether Tendulkar will be a good brand fit for Timex, Wadhwa said: ?Yes why not. But he is expensive. We would rather spend money on advertising campaign on television and print, than spending a huge amount on one brand ambassador.?
These plans come at the back of expectations of upto 50% jump in the sales turnover of the company this fiscal. Timex India is hopeful of seeing its turnover touch Rs 200 crore this fiscal led by the launch of new range of watches, more stores and doubling of media spends.
The organised watch market in India is estimated to be around Rs 2,600 crore of which Timex India has near 10% market share based on retail value.
Commenting on the growth of Timex India in the current fiscal, Wadhwa explained: ?We will touch 90-95 stores of ‘Timex Time Factory’ by March-end next year and 144 stores by March 2013. More stores will surely lead to better sales.?
Timex India is looking to open at least eight more stores in the national capital region by December. ?Five will come up in Bangalore and one each in Amritsar, Jalandhar, Jodhpur, and Udaipur among other towns,? Wadhwa said. He conceded that one of the reasons for a less-than-expected growth of Timex India in the last two fiscals was due to lack of exclusive Timex stores across the country.
According to the company, Timex India is strong in the Rs 1,000-Rs 5,000 price band of watches where it plans to further consolidate. Timex India is also set to bring in more luxury watches from its global portfolio.
Timex India is in talks with a Bangalore-based large retailer of consumer electronic goods for opening 20 stores. Timex also unveiled its ICC World Cup watch collection on Tuesday priced between Rs 1,395 to Rs 6,000. ?Not in the short-term, but certainly in over a year’s time, there are fears that wage inflation in China would shift the components market to India and the vendors may increase the prices. Once that happens, we will have the choice of either passing on any price increase in the watches to the consumers or absorbing them internally,? Wadhwa said.