hirty years ago, Bangalore – a resort town and military garrison with a mild climate particularly popular with the British – had already grown considerably and was home to a population of around 4.4 million. Today, Bengaluru as it is now called, has become India’s high-tech capital with a 14.4 million population, almost twice that of Switzerland. In almost perfect symmetry, three decades ago, Titan was already producing four million complete watches there. Today, it produces 15 million.

It’s worth pausing here to take a brief look at Titan’s history, which is closely bound up with India’s development. A fascinating book by journalist Vinay Kamath, TITAN: Inside India’s Most Successful Consumer Brand (Hachette India, 2018), provides an insightful account of this history, without hiding the difficulties and obstacles encountered along the way. Showing on Amazon MX Player in early 2026, Made in India – A Titan Story is certain to be watched by thousands: in India, Titan is a household name.

J.R.D. Tata, played by Naseeruddin Shah, and Xerxes Desai, played by Jim Sarbh, in Made in India - A Titan Story

Behind Titan lies Tata - founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata and still 66% controlled by the same family through the Tata Sons holding company (which, it should be noted, returns most of its dividends to philanthropic programmes in the fields of health, education and the environment through the Tata Trusts). The sprawling Tata Group is present in 100 countries, employs more than one million people and generated aggregate revenue of USD 180 billion in the 2024-2025 fiscal year. Above all, it is closely linked to the very history of India’s independence and the construction of modern India, notably through the close, sometimes conflictual yet essential relationship between Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (right from the time of independence in 1947) and industrialist J.R.D. Tata. The same J.R.D. Tata is the protagonist of the Amazon series, alongside Titan founder Xerxes Desai.

The Titan whirlwind

The first Titan watch was released in February 1987. Two years later, in 1989, Titan had already surpassed the milestone of one million watches produced. It was a whirlwind that would completely shake up the Indian market. Until then, this highly protectionist market had been largely dominated by the state-owned HMT, which produced only mechanical movements. Titan’s rise would sound HMT’s gradual demise.

The suggestion that Tata Group could enter the watch market had been made a decade earlier, in 1977. The man entrusted with the task was the then head of Tata Press, Xerxes Desai. However, there were many obstacles to this ambition, starting with government regulations, the “Licence Raj”, that reserved this activity for state-owned companies such as HMT, or for modestly sized private entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, doors slowly began to open with the gradual liberalisation initiated by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Without delving into the twists and turns that would enable Tata to create Titan, the solution – that took nearly ten years to find – came via the state of Tamil Nadu. The latter is immediately adjacent to Karnataka of which Bangalore is the capital and was seeking to attract job-creating industries to its territory. In 1978, the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd. (TIDCO) contacted France Ebauches SA with a view to setting up a watch manufacturing plant. But to do so, TIDCO needed an Indian industrial partner and approached Tata Press, whose ambitions for development in the watchmaking industry were well known. In September 1979, Xerxes Desai travelled to Besançon to meet with the executives of France Ebauches, which was at the time the leading manufacturer of analogue quartz-driven watch blanks and movements in France and the European Economic Community.

Archives of the Eastern Jeweller and Watchmaker (EJW, a Europa Star publication) issue 4 - 1985. Europa Star wished Titan every success, prompting some harsh comments from Swiss watchmakers.

Discussions took several more years, particularly as the Indian government was slow to green-light the operation. It was not until 1985 that a cooperation agreement was signed between France Ebauches, Tata Industries Ltd. and TIDCO-Tamil Nadu, as Europa Star triumphantly announced at the time. Titan Watches Ltd. was created in 1986 and a year later, in February 1987, the Hosur factory was built and production began.

Xerxes Desai

Let’s pause for a moment to consider the remarkable personality of Xerxes Desai (1937–2016), a man of culture and great finesse; a visionary who was the true architect and mastermind behind Titan.

A member of the influential Parsi community, this native of Bombay (now Mumbai), attended New College, Oxford, where he acquired his refined English. He began his career with the Tata Group in 1961, assigned to the reconstruction and renovation of the famous Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Bombay before being appointed project manager for the restoration of other gems in the Tata hotel group, including the famous Lake Palace in Udaipur. This expertise led Tata to second him to CIDCO, an official body of the state of Maharashtra, whose project was to build a vast new city – New Bombay, now called Navi Mumbai – where he became general manager. This was a fundamental experience, during which he met the famous architect Charles Correa, who would later build Titan’s exceptional “resort-factory” in Hosur.

Xerxes Desai alongside J.R.D. Tata at the Titan watch plant in Hosur on 11 March 1988. Between them is B. N. Yalamalli.

After three years with CIDCO, Xerxes Desai was called back by Tata as managing director of Tata Press. “At that time, no one could have imagined that this little-known Tata Group company – an obscure and poorly performing firm printing art and culture magazines, calendars and diaries – would be the launch pad for Titan Watches, now among India’s best-known consumer brands. But business decisions, as Xerxes always held, although seemingly the result of meticulous planning, often happen by chance”, writes Vinay Kamath in his book Titan.

After turning around, industrialising and significantly developing the company, Desai and his strong team sought out new projects for Tata Press. Among the many different areas under consideration – including “the production of ophthalmic lenses, granite tombstones, mechanised fishing boats, containers...” – the watch industry made the final shortlist and Desai decided that watches were “the best project”.

“A serendipitous journey”

Vinay Kamath dates the decision that would set the wheels in motion precisely to a phone call on 21 March 1977 between Xerxes Desai and senior Tata executive Anil Manchanda. At that time, the only major watchmaker was HMT, which produced around one million watches per year, with a few other smaller watchmakers turning out about 500,000, making a total of 1.5 million Indian watches for the entire population of the subcontinent. While brands such as Favre Leuba, Roamer, Sandoz, Titoni, West End, Seiko and Citizen were relatively easy to find in large cities, they were all smuggled into the country, which was closed to official imports at the time. Objectively speaking, there was a gap in the market.

Taking this opportunity was, as Xerxes himself says, “a serendipitous journey.”

Quartz rules

But let’s return to 1985 and the launch of Titan. Time flew between the signing of the official agreement with France Ebauches, the construction and commissioning of the Hosur factory and the release of the first watches. From the outset, Xerxes Desai made a crucial decision: to manufacture only quartz watches. This booming technology had an aura of modernity, required fewer components, was simpler to produce and assemble – and above all combined slimness and versatility enabling the creation of a multitude of models. This choice of quartz-driven analogue models, combined with strong and disruptive marketing, quickly caused a sensation on the Indian market. By the end of 1988, after its first year of operation, Titan had already sold 344,000 watches, a truly meteoric start.

Titan’s first iconic full-page advertisement in 1989.

One of Titan’s first advertisements, in 1989, already offering a wide choice of models, is exemplary in this respect.

Described as “The changing face of time”, the 1989 collection featured 250 different designs, divided into four distinct collections: Royale, “Stylish dress watches all gold and precious metals, 40 designs”; Classic, “Distinctive watches combining the elegance of gold and leather, 135 designs”; FastTrack, “Casual watches with an accent on youth and the outdoors, 24 designs”; and Exacta, “Contemporary watches in stainless steel to withstand the rigours of daily life, 100 designs.” All of them had very affordable price tags (from 370 to 2,000 rupees at the time, equivalent to around CHF 20 to 300 today). The impact of this new and unprecedented offering was enormous, radically transforming the Indian watchmaking landscape, a scene that Titan continues to dominate to this day.

The world’s fifth-largest integrated watch brand

Forty years after the 1985 year agreement with France Ebauches – which subsequently vanished before gradually reemerging in recent years – Titan is more successful than ever. It currently holds a 27% share of the global Indian watch market that is worth USD 2 billion a year, even accounting for 50% in the mid-range (up to USD 250) and 40% in the entry-level range (up to USD 50). It employs more than 13,000 people, has a network of 8,500 subcontractors and produces 15 million watches per year, sold in 40 countries (including in the Middle East, North America and Singapore). Titan is thus the world’s fifth-largest integrated watch brand. It is distributed through a network of 3,240 stores that it largely controls and has diversified into jewellery (its Tanisq brand holds 8% of the highly fragmented Indian market, the world’s largest consumer of gold jewellery, which also has tens of thousands of stakeholders), eyewear, fragrances, fashion and saris. Titan has a total turnover of USD 6.45 billion.

The iconic Integrity Campus

Titan’s rise within the watchmaking industry, combined with the company’s diversification, is symbolised in physical form by the rather extraordinary Titan Integrity Campus, built in 2018 in Bengaluru by Mindspace Architects.

Organically developed around a lake serving as both a biological reserve and a source of natural freshness, the various buildings in this integrated and luxuriantly wooded complex are designed in such a way that each department –watchmaking, jewellery, optics, accessories, etc – has its own area yet is directly connected to the others via large atriums providing natural ventilation and light. Each interior space, however large, is thus designed to enjoy daylight, minimising the use of artificial lighting which is regulated by sensors and presence detection. With a workforce of 1,500 people including human resources, finance and accounting, administration and marketing for each of the departments, the site is spread across 2.6 hectares.

The Design Centre occupies a central space, bringing together 120 people who work for the various departments, including 45 designers for the watchmaking department alone, headed by Mahendra Chauhan.

Upscaling

“I don’t design watches, I design dreams,” said Gérald Genta, who Mahendra Chauhan loves to quote. At the time of its founding, Titan brought to India the quartz revolution, which enabled it to quickly offer a wide range of creative and affordable models covering a broad spectrum of styles. “Historically, design has been at the heart of Titan’s offering,” he explains, “and it has remained so. We always strive to go beyond mere functionality and release around 700 new watches a year, including 230 to 240 new cases. Of all our collections, Edge is doubtless the most creative of all. It was launched in 2022, based on a 1.15mm quartz movement, the thinnest in the world at the time of its launch.” [Citizen has since broken this record with a 1mm movement].

In 2000, Titan Industries announced in Europa Star the release of its 1.15 mm quartz movement, dubbed “Le Papillon” and Swiss-made.

The Edge collection – 1.5 million watches sold to date – was an important milestone for Titan, which was now directly targeting Millennials through this watch and its minimalist design: winner of a Red Dot Award and competing in the 2024 GPHG.

The newest launch from the Edge collection, equipped with a quartz movement, measures a total 3.3mm thick and features a single hand along with a floating disc.

The Edge quartz movement measures just 1.15mm thick and drives hours and minutes functions.

The 4.4 mm-thick carbon fibre model is another innovation from Edge, made entirely of carbon, including the dial and back cover.

Note that Titan recently developed – in collaboration with Swiss companies – a 2.20mm-thick mechanical Edge movement with a 42-hour power reserve, displaying hours, minutes and small seconds.

The T-903-HIGH movement, 26.25mm in diameter and 2.20mm thick.

Launched four years ago, the Stellar collection also marks a new stage in Titan’s progress and its “charm offensive”, this time aimed at a clientele with an eye for design and inspired by a certain pop culture and the space race that India has entered with innovative, low-cost means. (Major achievements of India’s space programme include the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing at the lunar south pole, a first, as well as the Aditya-L1 solar exploration mission).

Stellar watch with meteorite dial.

Stellar wandering hour, equipped with a Titan in-house mechanical automatic movement.

Stellar quartz watch with micro-rotor, moon and Indian lunar calendar (each new moon has a specific name).

Titan regular automatic movement measuring 26.4mm in diameter and 5.1mm thick, with a 36-hour power reserve and unidirectional winding.

This year, Titan is launching three striking models in the Stellar collection, with prices ranging from USD 500 for a large moon-phase watch to USD 2,500 for a wandering-hour release. At the top of its range, Titan also presents the Nebula Gold in 18k gold, equipped with a Swiss-made movement.

Nebula top-of-the-range version, with an 18k solid gold case and Swiss automatic movement.

This year’s new releases also include the Raga collection of women’s watches, a showcase for creative design.

Part of the Raga Glimmer collection, this watch features a dual time zone thanks to two separate dials that slide over each other, yet is less than 10mm thick overall thanks to the two ultra-thin Edge movements.

Another watch from the same Raga Glimmer collection stands out with three gemset inner bezels that rotate freely in step with wrist movements.

Global temptations

Europa Star, 1995

In the late 1990s, after lengthy negotiations, Titan was finally able to exhibit at the Basel Fair, whose management had previously refused to admit the company until India lowered its very high tariffs on watch imports. Xerxes Desai’s idea and objective was for Basel to serve as a launch pad for a vigorous introduction to the European market, which began in 1995 with a USD 10 million pan-European advertising campaign.

Advertisement published in Europa Star in 1996.

Unfortunately, this introduction to the European market was short-lived. In 1999, Europa Star interviewed Xerxes Desai, who had not yet given up on establishing the firm in Europe yet acknowledged the difficulties he was facing. And he did not mince his words:

Europa Star 1999

In the same interview, Desai stated that he had sold 120,000 watches in Europe in 1998 and set a long-term target of 350,000. Yet a few years later, he had to throw in the towel. When asked about his intention to manufacture Swiss Made watches, he did not rule out the possibility but added that it would only make sense if they were mechanical watches. “It’s not for now, but maybe one day...”, he concluded.

Has that day arrived? Does Titan intend to return to the European market?

A booming domestic market

In 2024, Titan presented two Edge watches in competition at the GPHG. This year, the brand returned with Jalsa, an exceptional watch featuring a flying tourbillon at the heart of a dialadorned with a miniature painting representing one of India’s architectural gems, the Palace of Winds in Jaipur.

However, according to all our contacts in Bengaluru, this should not be seen as the start of a new offensive aimed at European markets, but rather as a demonstration piece, an affirmation of watchmaking mastery at its highest level. This remarkable watch is in fact primarily aimed at Titan’s rapidly growing domestic market as well as Asian and Middle Eastern markets where the brand is already well established, particularly among the large Indian communities living there. Although still a highly unequal society, India has undergone significant change over the past 30 years. Not only has the Indian middle class grown considerably – now numbering more than 500 million people, making it the largest middle class in the world, while the number of Indian millionaires is approaching one million – but this segment of the population is young and eager to consume luxury goods. (Benjamin Teisseire’s article in this issue, India, the new frontier, covers these economic aspects in detail).

Another anecdotal yet, according to our interviewees, very real development is the emergence of new Indian collectors, who are well aware of the superior value and durability of mechanical watchmaking. At the same time, the market for high-quality pre-owned watches is growing rapidly. Another notable fact is the emergence – strongly promoted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist government – of a movement that is both a return to roots and a source of national pride, through campaigns promoting the concept of Made in India - Make in India.

Jalsa, Indian heritage and Haute Horlogerie

C.K. Venkatamaran, Managing Director of Titan Company Ltd. proudly tells us that: “With Jalsa, we are not simply launching a watch, we are presenting a cultural artifact. It is a rare blend of Indian artistic magnificence and watchmaking mastery, passionately crafted by our teams. In presenting Jalsa to the world at the GPHG, we do so with a sense of pride in India, in Titan and in everything we stand for.”

Powering Jalsa is Titan’s in-house Calibre 7TH2, a flying tourbillon movement comprising 144 components and 14 jewels. The flying tourbillon features a customised rotating cage representing the ‘T’ of Titan. The choice of red agate extends beyond ornamentation. Traditionally associated with protection and prosperity in Rajasthan’s royal history, the stone is integrated into both the bridges and the 18k rose gold skeleton case. Attached as a counterweight to the minutes hand, a sapphire lens opens a rotating window onto the miniature, revealing as time goes by the delicate details of the royal procession in front of the Hawa Mahal.

As Kalpana Rangamani, Director of Marketing & Sales - Luxury Watches at Titan, adds: “With Jalsa, we are taking a decisive step forward in Titan’s ambition to develop a premium segment within our watch portfolio. This timepiece reflects our vision to bring India’s rich cultural heritage into dialogue with the standards of Haute Horlogerie.”

Hand-painted miniature by Shakir Ali, winner of the Padma Shri award and one of India’s most respected miniaturist painters. Using a brush as fine as a hair and natural pigments derived from precious stones according to secret, ancestral recipes, the artist has depicted a royal procession in front of Jaipur’s famous Hawa Mahal – the Palace of Winds – which is celebrating its 225th anniversary in 2025.

“Putting Indian luxury and craftsmanship on the world watchmaking map”, as another spokesperson puts it, is therefore one of Titan’s current priorities. It is as if Titan were seeking, 30 years on, to overturn the image that Xerxes Desai lamented in 1999 when he told us “… unjustly, Indian products are not perceived as high quality goods.” The Jalsa aims to prove just the opposite.

The movement architecture references Jaipur’s architectural lines, with bridges set in natural red agate. The movement itself showcases nine distinct finishes, including circular Côtes de Genève with chamfering and circular graining, and circular satin-finishing with chamfering. A sapphire crystal caseback reveals the fully decorated movement.

As Mahendra Chauhan explains, participating in the GPHG, first with the Edge and then with the Jalsa, “pushes us to improve quality, work on more subtle finishes and develop our expertise. For the Jalsa, we designed the movement in-house and our technicians then worked in collaboration with Timeforge, a specialist company based in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Of the 144 movement components, 105 were made right here in our workshops. The other 39, including the balance, escapement, shock absorber and mainspring, come from Switzerland. The hand-guilloché dial of our first tourbillon was also made in Switzerland by Von Kaenel, as was the finishing of the components. We are however moving forward, learning and progressing. With the Jalsa, we are showcasing Indian fine craftsmanship, in this case miniature painting inspired by the Mughals, as well as also innovating with sapphire hands and a magnifying glass counterweight on the minutes hand that reveals the finesse of the painting and the tourbillon in motion. The same is true of the case, which contains a red agate ring and the polished marble dial base.”

Mechanical developments

While the Jalsa tourbillon is obviously at the top of Titan’s range (ten timepieces, all unique because each is handmade, sold at a price of ₹40.5 lakhs, or around €45,000), it foreshadows the gradual upscaling of Titan’s mechanical watch range. The latter currently represent only a small percentage of the 15 million watches produced annually, with around 300,000 watches equipped with Miyota movements and, for the time being, about 80,000 watches fitted with in-house mechanical movements. However, the development programme already includes a series of complicated movements, such as a perpetual calendar, a minute repeater, as well as wandering hours, jumping hours, ultra-thin movements and other specialties.

Moreover, Titan has announced that starting next year, in 2026, it will begin manufacturing its own assortments representing the very heart of the watch, notably including its own balance-spring within two years. In Hosur, its movement section alone employs nearly 400 people working on a catalogue of 204 calibres.

The Ashoka wheel

Titan’s proactive development in the realm of high-end mechanical watches would certainly have delighted the late Xerxes Desai. Vinay Kamath recalls a forgotten storyin his book Titan. In the early 1990s, Xerxes Desai nurtured his Euro Watch Project, for which a special division was built in Hosur to manufacture high-quality cases and bracelets. European designers were hired. Foreseeing a simultaneous launch in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Austria and the Netherlands, the project included the acquisition of the highly exclusive Gérald Genta brand and Manufacture. This takeover was intended to “open new doors.” Xerxes was enthusiastic about Gérald Genta’s watches, which at the time were almost exclusively made to order for the most prestigious and wealthy clients. Discussions began and Gérald Genta demanded the then exorbitant sum of CHF 40 million (nearly CHF 90 million in today’s terms). According to the agreement, Genta – who did not wish to see his brand become mass-market yet nevertheless wanted to scale up its distribution – was to continue working on his projects and designing watches for Titan. In exchange, Titan undertook to provide him with all the necessary means for promotion and distribution.

A summit meeting was held at Bombay House with the directors of Tata Sons. They felt that this venture made no sense for Titan, given that Genta only made watches “for the super-rich” and that “Tata’s ethic is not to sell baubles to the rich.” Furthermore, even though the group had deep pockets, betting such a large sum on the reputation of one man alone was a mistake that could prove fatal. Xerxes was disappointed, but his project fell through.

It has taken 30 years for Titan to finally enter the world of Haute Horlogerie and present its splendid flying tourbillon. Ashoka’s wheel (found on the Indian flag) has at last turned.