Titan to set up second lens manufacturing unit.

Titan Company Limited, a Tata group enterprise engaged in jewellery, watch and spectacles business, is planning to set up a second lens manufacturing plant besides proposing to expand its multi-brand eyewear retail network by adding another 60 stores in the next fiscal.

The new plant would be set up either in the north or in the eastern part of India at a size that can increase the in-house lens manufacturing capacity by 50 per cent, said S Ravi Kant, chief executive officer of Titan Eyewear Business, recently.

The existing unit is located at Chikkaballapur in Karnataka and has a capacity to produce half a million lenses a year. The company has invested about Rs. 15 crore in this plant and is yet to finalise the investment size in the proposed plant, according to Ravi Kant. In-house lenses account for up to 40 per cent of the total sales at the Titan Eye + brand retail stores as the plant produces only high-end lenses while frames are being imported completely.

The eyewear market in India is estimated to be of the size of Rs. 3,500-3,800 crore and is growing at 16 per cent annually though the organised retail portion of the market is at 30 per cent giving ample space for growth to players like Titan, according to Ravi Kant.



BS