Rs 2.5cr watch in tow, Lange & Söhne ticks big

Luxury goods makers are flocking in large numbers to tap Indians’ growing urge to splurge. German watchmaker A Lange & Söhne is among those setting up shop in the country, to cash in on “extremely sophisticated tastes”. Nirmal John caught up with Fabian Krone, CEO, A Lange & Söhne. Excerpts:

What kind of growth do you expect for Lange in India?
We have noticed that Indians have sophisticated tastes and also knowledge and sensitivity for craftsmanship. We believe India has a number of people who travel a lot and are familiar with our brand. There is a space for Lange, but it might take a while …. India will develop into an interesting and important market.

Do you have any targets for India in mind?
Lange manufactures only about 5000 watches a year. We don’t have a number for India right now. But as we start knowing more and more customers, we will bring in watches for them.

What will be your customer touch point and what would be your strategy to attract customers?
Plans are there to open two stores, one each in Delhi and Mumbai. We also plan to do customer dinners as also ads. This will be done in a step-by-step manner. It involves a lot of word of mouth. We would have to show the people the value of the brand for them to talk about it.

Is that where movie director Farhan Akhtar steps in?
The way he approaches his art is the same way we approach our watches. We appreciate him for putting his art above anything else. We have not yet decided how we would take our association with him forward.

€350,000 is a lot of money for a watch. Is it difficult to justify the premium?
It took us 15 years to develop this watch and we make only about 100 every year. Further, the energy is transported through a chain, like in a bicycle. Such things have never been done in a watch. There are around 650 pieces for this chain and over 1,000 pieces for the watch. So it is quite complicated.

One tends to associate watches with Switzerland, not Germany. How did Lange address this challenge?
When Lange started 17 years ago, Switzerland was a monopoly in watch making. Eastern Germany, where Lange is based, was coming out of communism. When we came out as maker of luxury goods and as a competitor to Swiss brands, a lot of people laughed. But in the past few years, German watch making and Lange has gained a lot of respect with the quality of products. Like is the case with cars, it is in the German DNA to do things with precision engineering. I think we have the preconditions to also be known as a watch-making country.

Outside of Germany, which is the biggest market for the company?
The US is a huge market for us. Asia is becoming a growing market. Italy is very strong and so is Japan. We will be launching in India in January. We are not in China yet and will be launching there early next year. We expect these to be important markets for us.