TimeVallée, Tata group in alliance for luxury watches

The watch brands will be sold through Tata’s e-commerce marketplace TataCLiQ Luxury. Most of these watches start at about €1,000 (about ₹87,700) each, extending up to several lakh rupees.

Going forward, TimeVallée also plans to open physical stores in India with Tata CLiQ Luxury, Michael Guenoun, chief executive said in an interview. The Swiss firm currently has about 40 physical stores globally.

TimeVallée generates bulk of its business from China but it expects India to become a large market in the coming years, Guenoun said.

“Post covid, we are seeing strong spending by Indians on luxury watches, not just in India but abroad, too. We do believe in the Indian market and are here for the long run. We expect to open stores here too in the future, with the same partner,” Guenoun said.

Demand for luxury watches in India has soared, with Swiss watch imports nearly doubling in 2022 from 2020, according to data from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. Watch distributors in India imported luxury watches worth CHF 187.6 million ($200 million) last year, nearly doubling from CHF 97 million in 2020.

Globally, TimeVallée retails about 30 luxury watch brands but will start its Indian journey with six. “Since India has limited luxury retail malls, growing digitally first will help us focus on the right consumer,” he said.

Gitanjali Saxena, chief business officer at Tata CLiQ Luxury said, “Consumer behaviour has changed drastically. In the luxury space, players can’t necessarily achieve scale only through a physical presence.”

While she did not share specifics, Saxena said the platform emulates general buying behaviour of high net-worth individuals.