Titan shines in September quarter as jewellery sales sparkle on festive demand

Titan Co. Ltd reported a profitable September quarter, buoyed by strong festive demand, despite soaring gold prices, underscoring its dominant position in the Indian jewellery market.

The Tata group company's revenue from operations rose 21% year-on-year to ₹16,407 crore ( ₹18,837 crore including bullion and digi-gold sales), surpassing the ₹15,547 crore estimated by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Net profit climbed to ₹1,120 crore against ₹704 crore a year ago.

“Our jewellery business, in particular, benefitted immensely from this late surge, underscoring the brand strengths and enduring consumer affinity for our brands Tanishq, Mia, Zoya, and CaratLane,” said C.K. Venkataraman, the company's managing director.

“The quarter witnessed a slow start, and performance progressively improved with the early festive commencement in September. The demand momentum in Navratri was particularly strong, leading to a healthy 21% growth in this quarter.”

He said the Bengaluru-headquartered company remains “focused on strengthening brand salience and accelerating growth across all our businesses”, with the festive season driving positive consumer sentiment.

Titan operates four main businesses: jewellery, watches and wearables, eyecare, and others, including ethnic wear brand Taneira, perfume brand Skinn by Titan, and Titan Engineering and Automation Ltd.

Of the ₹16,407 crore in operating revenue (excluding bullion and digi-gold), the jewellery business accounted for about 86% or ₹14,092 crore, followed by watches and wearables at ₹1,477 crore, others at ₹557 crore, and eyecare at ₹220 crore.

The mainstay

The jewellery division remained Titan’s biggest growth driver, with revenue rising 21% year-on-year to ₹14,092 crore and segment profit surging 55% to ₹1,506 crore. Of this, sales of Tanishq, Mia, and Zoya grew 18% to ₹12,460 crore, while CaratLane's sales increased 32% to ₹1,072 crore. International operations nearly doubled to ₹561 crore, driven by strong demand in the UAE and North America.

Its bullion and digi-gold sales nearly doubled to ₹2,430 crore from ₹1,099 crore a year ago. These are excluded from jewellery revenue and accounted for separately in the overall consolidated income.

Titan also announced its plan to acquire a controlling stake in Damas Jewellery, one of the most prominent and trusted brands in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries.

"This acquisition marks a significant step forward in our ambitions, reinforcing our commitment to delivering exceptional value to our customers globally. With the festive season driving positive consumer sentiment, we remain focused on strengthening brand salience and accelerating growth across all our businesses,” said Venkataraman.

Venkataraman said while elevated gold prices had caused a brief pause in consumer purchases, sentiment rebounded strongly as prices stabilized. “There’s been a certain callback, which consumers had during the material rise of gold, but when they didn’t see it come down and it continued to remain high during the festival, a lot of sensing came back. October and generally the festive season have been very good for the industry—and certainly very good for us,” he said during the post-results call with analysts.

He said Titan’s aggressive exchange programme played a significant role in stimulating buyer demand. “We ran a very powerful exchange, which might have influenced demand significantly, besides, of course, the Diwali collection launches and campaigns,” he said, adding that the company consciously positioned the exchange scheme not merely as a discount offer but as an emotional appeal to customers “to unlock their lockers—it’s good for you and good for the country”.

Titan added 34 new jewellery stores in the country, including six Tanishq, 18 Mia, and 10 CaratLane outlets and opened one new Tanishq store in Virginia, US.

Watches and wearables

The watches and wearables division delivered a steady performance, with revenue rising 13% year-on-year to ₹1,477 crore and segment profit increasing 22% to ₹238 crore. A stronger traction in analogue and premium watches offset a decline in smart wearables.

The company added 15 new Titan World, Helios, Helios Luxe, and Fastrack outlets.

Venkataraman said Titan’s watch margins remain healthy. “For watches, 16–17% earnings before interest and tax (Ebit) margins are good numbers given the kind of investments required—we are beyond that this quarter.”

The eyecare business, though smaller in scale, saw 9% revenue growth to ₹220 crore, led by sunglasses outpacing other categories. The division added five new ‘Runway’ stores in the quarter. Runway stores are Titan Eye+’s new premium-format stores designed to offer a larger eyewear assortment, advanced eye-testing technology, and a lifestyle-led retail experience.

The “others” segment nearly doubled its revenue to ₹557 crore, aided by the expansion of Taneira’s ethnic wear stores and robust growth at Titan Engineering and Automation Ltd.

Within emerging businesses, fragrances grew 47% on-year, women’s bags surged 90%, and Taneira delivered double-digit growth.

Consumer sentiment

The management noted that buyer growth in jewellery has been steady despite gold’s volatility. “Buyer growth overall has been -2% for the quarter, gold was -11%, but studded jewellery buyer growth was positive at +3%, showing better traction than plain gold,” Venkataraman said. “The contribution of studded jewellery in the second quarter was around 14% of overall business, up one percentage point on-year.”

“Post the festive 10 days, even after Diwali, the sales growth has continued in the same way as the fine festival, largely due to a good wedding season and the continued exchange we are running,” Venkataraman added

Titan expects “growth to continue to be good, even historically high”, while margins should stabilize as gold prices moderate. “If gold prices stabilize, growth prospects improve because more buyers will come into the market and margins will also hopefully become stable,” he said.

The company also reiterated its target for store expansion. “For the full year, the target remains 35 to 40 new Tanishq stores,” Venkataraman said. “We also expanded and renovated close to 35 stores in the first half, which is giving us very good results.”

It was Venkataraman's final earnings call with analysts as he is set to retire at the end of this year. Titan’s board has approved the appointment of Ajoy Chawla as managing director and chief executive, effective 1 January 2026.

While Titan’s reported growth appeared strong, part of it was driven by a favourable festive calendar shift, according to Pratik Prajapati, equity research analyst at Ambit Capital.

“In 2024-25, Navratri fell in the third quarter, whereas this year it came in the second quarter—so the apparent festive boost in the September quarter is partly due to this shift,” he said. “If you normalize the quarters, Titan has still delivered healthy growth, with jewellery demand sustaining despite elevated gold prices.”

“If you adjust for last year’s import duty cut, Ebitda has grown around 14% on-year. At the PBT level, growth has been solid, though margins at the gross level have contracted slightly. Sequentially, profitability tends to improve from Q1 through Q4, with the second half usually delivering stronger margins,” said Prajapati.

Titan’s shares on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed 0.4% lower at ₹3,724.5 apiece on Monday, while the Nifty 50 index fell 0.2%.