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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Indulge/  The $300-2,000 price bracket is really very exciting for us: Shinji Hattori
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The $300-2,000 price bracket is really very exciting for us: Shinji Hattori

Shinjo Hattori on Seiko's focus on medium- and higher-end watches and the brand's new relationship with Novak Djokovic

After decades of success in Japan, the Grand Seiko is now making waves globally, says president and chief executive officer Shinji Hattori. Premium
After decades of success in Japan, the Grand Seiko is now making waves globally, says president and chief executive officer Shinji Hattori.

At Basel this year, Mint Indulge caught up with Seiko’s president and chief executive officer Shinji Hattori for our annual chat about watches, the brand and the brand’s marketing plan. This year, Seiko showed several new watches, as usual, but also a brand new relationship with Novak Djokovic. Hattori spoke about this exuberant choice. Edited excerpts:

How is India shaping up for you? How is the market? Are you happy?

Of course, we think the Indian market has huge potential. And right now, we are very happy with the sales from our stores and our consumer acceptance. Currently, our effort at Seiko is to enhance the sales of our higher- and medium-price range in India. That will be our focus going forward in that market.

Your new association with Novak Djokovic is a great idea. I think it kind of fits with Seiko’s brand philosophy. But why tennis? Is it popular enough in Japan? Or do you have broader global ambitions?

As I said before, our ambition is to see greater popularity for our medium- and higher-end products. Not just in India but everywhere in the world. Novak is a world-class prestige player, who shares our desire to be the best. He has this great drive to maintain his status as a leader. And he offers great versatility from a marketing perspective. We admire Novak as a player, of course, but we also admire him as a person who has a huge range of interests, a very varied lifestyle, and he also commits a lot of time and resources to his charitable foundation. A really diverse personality. This is why we are planning to have him up here on not only sports watches, but also our more elegant dress watches.

Also this year, you seem to have focused a lot on women’s watches and models. A few years ago, you told me that women’s models were not a priority for Seiko. Has that position changed?

Yes, somewhat. In recent years, we have put more focus on women’s watches. And as a result, the proportions of our sales that are for women has increased. We’ve seen success in a diverse range of watches for women. From large mechanical watches to sporty models and automatics. I think women are beginning to appreciate the convenience of a no-battery automatic watch. And we are trying to meet that demand for convenience.

And do you see the proportion increasing? Are you working on increasing it?

Yes. It is increasing. And I really hope we are able to keep it that way.

The mid-priced mechanical range seems to be opening up. Thanks to the tight supply of movements, it must be a great opportunity for brands such as Seiko that make their own calibres?

I agree with you completely. There is a huge opportunity for us here. The $300-2,000 price bracket is really very exciting for us. This is why I said before, our current focus is on making our more high-end collections popular as well. We have a reputation for making great value timepieces. We want to step things up to the next level.

This year, one of your big stories is the new global launch of the Prospex collection. Why did you choose to launch a premium sports range?

Seiko has always had a reputation for making very good sports watches. But we had never really pulled things together into a coherent international sports product plan. Prospex was a collection that we already had in the domestic Japanese market. We decided that it was mature enough to be taken to the world. So Prospex is now an international brand. It gives Seiko real legitimacy in the sports segment.

So does this mean that in the future you will bring more and more of your domestic brands and collections to the global market?

Yes. That is the plan.

The other thing I noticed this year is that greater confidence is shown in the Grand Seiko collection. You are really pushing it globally, giving it good visibility and with a certain marketing purpose.

Yes, yes. We have a global plan for the Grand Seiko and there is a lot of confidence in this now. The world, we feel, is ready for the Grand Seiko. Do remember that the Grand Seiko has been available in Japan for more than half a century. And we only really launched it globally two years ago. So there are a lot of learnings still to be had.

Three years ago when we spoke about the Grand Seiko, you were confident of its success in Asia. But you seemed unsure about how Europe or America might receive a high-end premium Seiko model…

That is true. We’ve had a very carefully chosen presence in Asia for 10 years. But now we are no longer tentative. It will still take time to become a large business, but we have specific plans for specific markets—Europe, the Middle East, India and other markets.

This is a technical question. The new GPS Astron is wonderful, most of all, because of its size. The small case size makes it a much easier watch to wear. How did you manage to slim it down?

The real problem used to be the antenna inside that completes the GPS connection. We used to have a large antenna. And that needed more space in the previous models. But now we’ve worked on reducing its size without comprising performance, of course, and so the case is better.

Did you have to come up with some new technology for this?

Indeed. But that is what Seiko has always been good at. Technological revolution.

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Published: 31 Jul 2014, 09:38 AM IST
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