By Deepti bhat

In 1961 HMT set up India's first factory for manufacturing mechanical watches It was set up in Bangalore In collaboration with citizen of Japan It came up with its second unit in 1972 Further HMT set up 14 ancillary unit across India HMT started with 14000 watches to 80 million in 3 decades

HMTs problem with trade was right from 1961. HMT sold watches only at their 13 offices The growth of its watches led for the expansion of service network, number was over 800 by mid 80s Despite this HMT did not have a system of carrying out the trade audit This made for wholesale retailers concept , effectively controlling the market

organized sector small sector invisible sector

Until 1970 , Switzerland was an undisputed leader (42 % volume share & 78% value share) Next 25 year their was radical changes The industry saw many new entrances Raise of Japan, emergence of Hong-Kong and decline of US watch industry In spite of the competition swiss came back strongly

It began with the merger of 2 umbrella gaints and insolvent watches manufacturer of swiss It looked at fashion statement They reestablished their technical superiority over japan By 1991, the production was 15.9% of global volume and 52.8% of value share from 38% from 1983

Retail revolution Integrating backwards Expanding the scale of scope Going international Jewellery range

In order to revive itself HMT embarked on restructuring exercise In 1994, it made an agreement with ISA quartz of france.

The co restructured its various business into 4 groups: capital goods Engineering components Consumer goods Service

Since 1995, the multinational players were the threat Threats are from , Swiss, Japan and china, hongkong and middle east alliance Most of the foreign player are in India only through assembly and distribution tie up Titan is raising barriers to the entry of foreign Competition in every possible way.

 Thank