By Rajesh Kurup

Buoyed by the festive season, Titan Company posted a 135% rise in net profit in the quarter ended December 31, and expects the momentum to continue into Q4. The luxury products company, which intends to open its first Tanishq jewellery store in the US soon, expects business in FY23 to be close to pre-pandemic levels. For its brand Taneira, the next 18-24 months will be the investment period, as it intends to add 40-50 stores, chief financial officer Ashok Sonthalia tells Rajesh Kurup. Edited excerpts:

Titan posted a 135% rise in its net profit in Q3, while revenue grew 36% and total income rose 31%. Where did the growth come in from?
The third quarter is a big quarter for consumer companies due to the festive season, particularly jewellery companies. For us, this was one of the best quarters in terms of growth and profitability, as there were many enabling conditions like high vaccination levels and low consumer anxiety levels. We saw strong demand across businesses, including watches and eyewear, and we gained market share in the jewellery segment.

Is the industry expecting the strong momentum to continue for the next five months and demand to rise for wedding jewellery?
In Q4, January was slightly impacted by the third wave and we expect February and March to record good traction. There is a backlog of weddings over the past 18-24 months, and we expect the financial year to end on a positive note. We hope FY23 will be close to a normal pre-pandemic kind of a situation and we are planning to play on the front foot to continue momentum and growth.

Titan was looking to open more Tanishq stores in India, UAE, US and Canada.
We opened 14 Tanishq stores in Q3, of which two were in the UAE and 12 were in India. In November 2020, we opened one store in Dubai…we plan to open two more in the UAE in Q4, taking the total to five. In the US, we intend to open our first store in Q1, and once we learn all the nuances, we will look at further expansion, including in North America. In India, we intend to end this year with 35-37 new Tanishq stores, and plan to add another 35-40 next year. At present, there are 382 Tanishq stores in the country. We are planning to set up stores in Canada, but it would depend on the successful implementation of a store in New Jersey, probably by Q1.

In the US and Canada, are you looking at the Indian diaspora as customers?
As far as Tanishq is concerned it would be the Indian diaspora as they are pretty wealthy and successful, and pretty Indian. They celebrate Indian festivals. As far as CaratLane’s (a direct-to-consumer jewellery brand) US foray is concerned, we intend to start with non-residential Indians and Persons of Indian Origin. We are looking to include other nationalities also.

Taneira (premium Indian dress wear brand) will emerge as a large driver in the next five years. Comments?
We had put Taneira on hold for some time as the pandemic happened exactly one year after we incubated it. We had 14 stores in six cities. Now we are picking up, and we added two stores and one city (Noida) in the last quarter. We will add 40-50 stores across new cities in next 18 months. The next 18-24 months will be the investment period, as we are convinced about the concept, our merchandise, selection and store formats among others. We want to give it a big push.

What are your inorganic growth plans to strengthen the company?
There are a lot of B2C companies coming up, and we need to strengthen our capabilities. We are open, whether its accessories, something like Taneira, eyewear, jewellery and smartwatches, among others. But we are mindful of the valuations.

Any further diversification plans?
For the next two-three years, we don’t want to diversify as we see a lot of headroom for us to grow in our existing segments.