Titan Company’s eyewear division has drawn up plans to reduce its dependency on China for frames and sunglasses progressively to about 50%, said a top company executive.
“China is the hub of eyewear,” said Saumen Bhaumik, CEO, Eyewear.. “India imports about 90-95% of frames and sunglasses from China. We wanted to be independent of China and the pandemic helped us make some good progress.”
According to him, Titan’s dependence on China frames and sunglasses had reduced drastically from 90-95% to 70% and the company was planning to bring it down further to 50% in the coming years. It was also encouraging the vendors to get prepared for scale and good quality as it wants to be ‘China-free’ in the long run.
Last year, the eyewear division produced four lakh frames and this would be doubled during the current fiscal. About 35% of the frames were made in-house and the balance imported from China and other countries.
Talking about the lens, he said that the plan was to raise in-house production to two million pieces by FY24 at its Chikkaballapur plant. During the current fiscal, it would make 1.7 million lenses.
Mr. Bhaumki, who was in the city to inaugurate the 100th Titan Eyeplus showroom in Tamil Nadu, said that it was the 760th showroom in the country and they were planning to ramp it up to 1,000 by FY23.
He also said that they had earmarked a capex of ₹40 crore for FY23 against ₹30 crore last year. The capex would be used for showroom front end, equipment and manufacturing facilities.
To a question about topline, he said it was likely to cross the ₹1,000-crore mark (consumer price level) in FY23 against ₹600 crore and ₹940 crore posted in FY21 and FY20, respectively.
“We are doing well and crossing ₹1,000 crore will not be difficult,” he said.
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