How was the year 2003 for the Titan watches division?
We started the year disastrously because in January we went into a prolonged lockout with the employees in the factory at Hosur. We ended up in a situation where we had the plant partially locked out for almost 90 days between January and the third week of April. That led to limited availability of the product in the last quarter of the financial year, which is January to March. That is also our peak selling quarter because we sell 30-35 per cent of our total volumes in that quarter. Because we had no availability, sales got affected. Secondly, we were not able to plan anything since we were in a hand-to-mouth situation. While we have several assembly facilities across the country, in terms of production Hosur is what supplies many of the components to the assembly units. After the lockout lifted, coinciding with the signing of a new wage agreement with the workers, everyone’s mood changed. The workers were happy that the lockout was over, we were happy because we could now plan ahead
