Citizen mulls assembling watches in India

With the Rupee depreciating against the Dollar, it has become quite a challenge for companies to keep down the prices of the goods they import for sale in India. The Japanese watchmaker, Citizen Watch Co. Ltd, has been feeling the pinch of the falling Rupee as imports are getting very costly and the company imports all its watches.

It is hence being forced to mull sourcing many parts or even assembling many of the watches in India. The import duty of about 40 per cent, VAT and other local taxes add up to about 65 per cent to the price of the watch. The company hence feels it would be worthwhile to manufacture watches, especially its lower-end ones under the Q&Q brand here, and also source many a part like the case, dials and other non-critical parts of its watches. “The movements will come from Japan,” said Shuji Takahashi, Managing Director, Japan CBM Corporation, a subsidiary of Citizen Watch Co.

As of now the company has been absorbing the input cost increases due to the falling Rupee.

It on Monday imports the watches whole, from China. “We even import the boxes in which the watches come packed in,” said K Chandrahas, vice-president, Japan CBM Corporation, the subsidiary of Citizen which owns the Q&Q division that will sell the lower end range of watches in India.

The rising cost of production in China too is being a dampener to the company’s plans in India.

The company, which on Monday has only a miniscule share in the country’s watch market, selling around 200,000 watches per annum, it hopes to double the sales in an year or so. The company probably has a tough fight in hand with about two-thirds of all watches sold in the country being spurious or of questionable make with most of them imported from China or assembled locally. Many of them carry the Citizen tag.