India is where it’s at

Tell us a little about Chrono Watch Company and how it’s making inroads into the Indian market.

Chrono Watch Company is a new ‘affordable to accessible luxury’ watch distribution, retailing and e-tailing company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Chrono Watch Company was incorporated in June 2012 and will commence commercial operations in January 2013.
Chrono Watch Company will be introducing and officially launching 45 international watch brands in India, which are currently not available in the country. This is the first time any watch distributor has launched such a wide array of premium quality international brands at the same time in any country. Our featured watch brands are mostly from Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France and USA.

What is Chrono’s focus segment?
Chrono Watch Company will be focused on the premium to affordable luxury segment of the branded watch market in India, which according to industry estimates is the fastest growing category at 30% to 35% a year. Under the fashion category, we sell brands like Alfex, Azimuth and Bavarian Crono. Under the sports category, we sell brands like Alessandro Baldieri, Alpina, Archimede and Aviator. Under the classic line, we have brands like Autran & Viala and Epos Swiss.

How has India responded to these brands, when compared to the rest of the world?
Since we are a new venture and will be creating and developing new categories in the watch market in India we cannot say much, but the preliminary response has been overwhelming. We have the largest online presence out of any watch retailing brand in India with over 66,000 fans on Facebook and close to 5,000 fans on Twitter.

How do you differentiate your watch brands from that of your competitors?
Basically, we will be creating an entirely new category in the Indian market for sports related lifestyle watches by launching a huge range of sports watches including, pilot, diving, motor racing, motor fashion. We will also introduce new categories of collections not yet popular in the Indian market such as oversized watches, retro and vintage style watches. We will bring in brands using avant-garde designs and new age material such as carbon, aluminium, silicon etc. These are brands which don’t overcharge and overprice their collections (to pay for celebrity endorsements) but which are reasonably and sensibly priced for the quality they offer. We will also focus on the affordable to accessible luxury market, which, so far, is a heavily under-represented and under penetrated market segment in India, i.e. watches with a retail price between `5,000 to `1lakh. We are also launching several high quality watch brands from Russia and Germany for the first time in India. These countries have long established and high quality traditions of watch making (in the case of Germany — on par with the Swiss) and are currently not present in the Indian market.

What are the recent innovations in the watch industry?
Increasing use of highly water resistant and durable wristbands using silicon, rubber and synthetic based materials in various colours rather than traditional steel or leather wristbands, especially in case of sports watches. This trend is being felt even in the high end luxury segment led by the popularity of newer luxury brands such as Hublot (which typically uses synthetic wristbands for its watches) among the elite and celebrity set. Watches today use new materials such as carbon and aluminium, which are lighter and more durable, in the sports watch category.