We visited the Indian watchmaking giant Titan in their headquarters in Bengaluru and their manufacture in Hosur. We also attended the unveiling of their latest watch – the Nebula by Titan Jalsa. A “Made in India” tourbillon.
Editor’s note: this article was written in July 2025 and was intended to be published then, but for some unknown reason, it was not. So here is the manufacturer report.
A new giant emerges: the coming out of Titan Watch Part 2 of 2
This is Part 2, where we discuss what we learned about the company, and the manufacture. In Part 1, we covered our hands-on review of the watch and the launch event.
Titan, the watch company
As a watch company, Titan is interesting. The company started right in the midst of the quartz revolution, and began with manufacturing quartz watches. They began their journey with a joint venture with France Ebauche to produce quartz movements in 1987 and began to manufacture mechanical movements from 2011.
They are involved in every stage of the value chain from raw materials to tool making, ebauche manufacture including the plates and bridges, to final assembly. The watch operation employs some 4000 workers over 3 business units in Bangalore, India; a manufacturing unit at Hosur and 3 assembly plants located in the north of India.
In the group’s lastest 23/24 account filing, their revenue was reported as about INR 51,000 crore, about CHF 4.8 billion. They claim that this puts the Titan Company as the fifth largest integrated watch manufacturer in the world. It is difficult to ascertain this, as when doing a comparison to the Morgan Stanley list of Swiss manufacturers, the CHF 4.8 billion revenue places them in second place, after Rolex and ahead of Cartier. But as the CHF 4.8 billion number is at a group level, with the company spanning some 14 brands, it is difficult to place the maison in comparison to the Swiss groups like Richemont and Swatch.
The headquarters of the watch division, the largest within the Titan company is in Bangaluru. This is a beautiful, modern campus like building, and a very nice work environment. The main plant is in Horsur, which is about 40km away, and is housed in a 15 acre large campus with multiple buildings. Here, they manufacture 15 million watches a year across 7 brands, with 5000 active SKUs. Other assembly plants in Roorkee, Pant Naga and Sikkim make up the other watches to complete Titan’s portfolio.
The visit to the manufacture was indeed eye opening. The facilities are almost self sufficient, and we can safely say that the watches are designed, and manufactured in-house. Here, they make the tools, parts, components for the dial, hands, and movements within the manufacture. The cases are made in their facilities in Coimbatore. Even the steel and gold case elements are made in foundries within the group. They do have some strategic partnerships with suppliers in Switzerland and Japan. We note in particular, they buy escapement components from Atokalpa in Switzerland and their solar technology as well as titanium cases and bracelets are from Citizen in Japan.
The mindset of the management we met during the visit was excellent. They were open to offer any information that we asked. They told us that their first tourbillon, which was released as a 4 piece limited edition in 2024, is a collaborative effort. The watch was designed in India, but the components sourced from Swiss partners. However, the Jalsa, which is the latest tourbillon to be released, is made inhouse, from the manufacture of tooling, parts and components, including plates, wheels are performed in India. And the entire assembly value add chain from T0 to T4 are also completed in the Nebula by Titan facilities in Hosur.
The event
The launch event was held in the TAJ Rambagh Palace Hotel in Jaipur. It was a grand affair attended by some 150 guests from all over India as well as some international journalists like us.
Nebula by Titan is the line of watches which Titan makes with gold as the base material for the case and bracelets. This new tourbillon, known as the Jalsa is a combination of métiers d’art of the traditional art of Indian miniature painting in combination with a tourbillon watch.
The watch features a miniature hand painting by Padma Shri Shakir Ali inspired by the Hawa Mahal in Jaipur. It depicts the Maharaja in procession in front of the Hawa Mahal, and an image well loved by the Indians.
