India’s largest watchmaker, Titan, wants to grab a slice of the fast-growing performance sports market and has plans to launch multiple products under the sub-brand ‘Zero Hour’.
According to Rahul Shukla, VP & CSMO, Watches Division, Titan Company Limited, the performance sports category is currently pegged at Rs 800 crore and is growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13 to 14%.
“We see immense opportunity in the performance sports category as India is becoming younger and there is a lot of focus on health and purpose-driven purchases. There is a lot of play that we have in the fashion sport segment, but in performance sport, we were not present. Now we have entered this segment whose market size is estimated at Rs 800 crore,” Shukla told the TNIE as Titan recently launched its new sub-brand Zero Hour.
Under the newly conceived sub-brand, the Tata Group company launched four professional diving watches with varying water resistance – 100 metre, 200 metre, 300 metre and 500 metre. These watches are priced between Rs 15,795 and Rs 77,995.
Shukla said that the best brands in the world are into sports and divers watches and hence the launch puts them in the category of globally acclaimed brands. He added that on a spec-to-spec basis, the diving watches of international brands are priced between 40% and 100% higher than what Titan is pricing.
“We want to make our watches more accessible to consumers. Going forward we will launch performance-oriented watches across different categories - from field watches to pilot watches. There's a whole trajectory of performance sport watches that will come from Titan under this brand name Zero Hour,” said Shukla.
Titan’s effort to expand its product portfolio and become more premium and aspirational comes as it expects to clock $1 billion in revenue from the watches business in FY27 and $2 billion by FY2030. India’s watch market is currently estimated at Rs 26,000 crore. Roughly half of it is sitting on watch prices above Rs 25,000. In the sub Rs 25,000, Titan has a substantial market share close to 47-48%.
Shukla said that the start to the financial year 2026-2027 has been strong as underlying factors such as a growing economy, higher disposable income, undterpenetration of wrist watches continue to support the market. However, the international watch business has taken a hit due to tensions in the Gulf region.
“At present, we are in about 40 countries with around 70 exclusive brand stores. A large part of it, around 30 of them are in the Gulf Area and generally we do pretty good business there…Right now business in Middle Eastern market is down due to the evolving geopolitical situation. Our main focus right now is the safety of employees there,” stated Shukla.