From Mumbai Specials To A Homegrown Powerhouse: The Fall And Rise Of Indian Watchmaking

This Post Is Brought To You By Bangalore Watch Company

Bangalore Watch Company creates thoughtfully designed watches that tell a unique story that ties back to a part of modern India — Space, Aviation, Cricket, and most recently, Outdoors.

This is part 2 in a three part series on the history and present of Indian watchmaking. For full context, you should read part 1 here. Part 3 is coming next week.

It’s the 1990s, and Indian watchmaking is in a weird place. The quartz crisis has decimated the mechanical watch industry, with Tata Group-backed Titan watches dominating the entire market with their quartz watches that offered great looks at an affordable prices, with the downside of no serviceability. But while Titan was looming over the legitimate Indian watch industry, something else was brewing in the streets. Something that would hurt Indian watchmaking for years to com.

On a sticky afternoon in Mumbai, tucked behind the chaos of Zaveri Bazaar, in a narrow alley that smells of solder and sweat, a watchmaker sits hunched over a battered workbench. His hands, stained with oil and time, are busy at their delicate trade: assembling what the world has come to know, derisively so, as the “Mumbai special.”

The Mumbai special is a watch with a story. Only, it’s not a story the buyer expects. The watchmakers workspace is a graveyard of watch parts. Swiss movements scavenged from forgotten dress watches, dials repainted in the backrooms of Byculla, a part of Mumbai known for this practice, cases that have seen more lives than a Bollywood starlet. A dial marked “Omega”, expertly repainted into a color that catches the eye, is fitted onto a movement that once ticked inside a Favre Leuba, then snapped into a case with a practiced flick. The result is a Frankenstein’s monster of a timepiece, sold for a few hundred rupees to a tourist.

In the 1990s, as the world’s appetite for “vintage” watches grew, so did the Mumbai special’s reach. Dealers in London and New York, hungry for bargains, snapped up crates of these watches, only to discover later that the “rare” Longines or “unique” Omega they’d bought was a patchwork of parts, assembled in a back alley half a world away. But for the watchmakers in these cramped workshops, the Mumbai special is not a scam. It’s survival. The collapse of HMT and the flood of cheap imports left thousands of skilled hands with no work and no prospects. So they did what Indians have always done: they adapted.

While understandable why it was done, the “Mumbai special” hurt Indian watches for decades to come. By the turn of the millennium, “Indian watch” had become a warning on collector forums, synonymous with watch” had become a warning on collector forums—a byword for fakes. And it will take years for this to change.

The Great Opening: 2000 and the New Economy

At the dawn of the new millennium, India was a new country. The customers were no longer rural buyers who were buying one watch for life. These were young professionals, looking to Switzerland, with Tissot, Longines and Omega, or Japan with Seiko and Citizen. The prices were aspirational, but so was the mood.

The transformation didn’t happen overnight. In 1991, a balance-of-payments crisis forced the Indian government to throw open the doors to foreign investment and trade. Tariffs fell, restrictions eased, and suddenly, the global marketplace was no longer a rumor but a reality. For the first time, imported watches could be sold openly, not just smuggled in through the gray market.

The impact was immediate. Watch shops that had once stocked only HMT and the occasional Titan now filled their shelves with international brands. Glossy magazine ads promised “Swiss luxury” and “Japanese precision.” Billboards in Mumbai and Delhi featured Bollywood stars and cricket heroes, wearing the latest from Titan.

In the years that followed, the Indian watch market would become one of the fastest-growing in the world. Global brands would jostle for space in malls and airports, tailoring their offerings to local tastes and festivals. But in that first flush of the new economy, what mattered most was the sense of possibility—the feeling that Indian time was keeping pace with the world.

The World Arrives

The first time a Swiss executive tried to sell a watch with Sanskrit numerals in Delhi, he thought he was being clever. We don’t have to mention the name of the brand, but the watch itself was a limited edition, its dial a swirl of gold and saffron, the numerals curling in elegant Devanagari script. A few feet away, a young couple examined the display with polite interest. They listened to the spiel, nodded at the craftsmanship, and then, with a smile, asked to see the latest chronograph instead. This was the paradox of the new India: global brands were everywhere, but understanding the Indian consumer was another matter entirely.

By the early 2000s, the world’s great watchmakers had set up shop in India’s biggest cities. Omega, TAG Heuer, Longines, and Rolex all opened boutiques, each vying for a slice of the country’s growing affluence. They brought with them not just their flagship models, but a new kind of marketing—one that tried, sometimes awkwardly, to speak the language of Indian tradition. There were watches with dials painted in the colors of the tricolor, limited editions for Diwali, and, inevitably, timepieces adorned with images of Ganesha or Krishna. Some brands even released “India Specials” with cases engraved in paisley or dials set with tiny rubies. The intention was clear: to honor local culture, to make the global feel personal.

But for many Indian buyers, these gestures felt a little too on the nose. The new middle class, raised on a diet of MTV and Microsoft, wanted the world’s best, not a caricature of their own heritage. They were as likely to buy a minimalist Scandinavian design as a Swiss watch with a lotus on the dial. For them, luxury was about aspiration, not nostalgia. Still, the market for these “India editions” was real—especially among non-resident Indians and older buyers who saw them as a bridge between worlds. And for the brands, the learning curve was steep but necessary. Some adapted, hiring Indian designers and listening more closely to local voices. Others doubled down, convinced that a little exoticism was what the market wanted.

Titan’s Empire: The Sub-Brand Revolution

Step into a Titan showroom on a Saturday afternoon in the new millenia and you’ll see a cross-section of modern India. There’s a young woman in jeans and a kurta, her mother at her side, both peering into a glass case lined with delicate, gold-toned watches. A college student, backpack slung over one shoulder, tries on a chunky, neon-colored Fastrack. At the far end, a middle-aged man in a crisp shirt is weighing the merits of a slim, ultra-thin Edge, while a salesman polishes a Nebula, its 18-karat gold case glinting under the lights. The air is bright with possibility and the low hum of a dozen different aspirations.

This is not the watch-buying experience of old. Gone are the days of the dusty, glass-fronted shop where a single HMT model sat in the window for months. Titan has rewritten the script, turning the act of buying a watch into a ritual of self-expression, a family outing, a rite of passage. The revolution began in the late 1980s, but it was in the 2000s that Titan truly came into its own. The company understood, perhaps better than anyone, that India was not one market but many. So it built an empire of sub-brands, each tailored to a different dream.

Fastrack was the first to break away from the pack. Launched in 1998, it was brash, playful, and unashamedly young. Its ads, full of skateboards, headphones, and sly winks, spoke to a younger generation. The watches were affordable and often a little outrageous: neon straps, oversized dials, designs that looked more at home in a club than a classroom. For millions of teenagers, a Fastrack was their first “real” watch.

Raga was a different story altogether. Introduced in 1992 and reinvented in the 2000s, Raga was Titan’s watch for Indian women. The designs were delicate, often inspired by traditional jewelry—filigree bracelets, mother-of-pearl dials and tiny charms. The ads used Bollywood stars, and the watches became a staple gift. Nebula was the luxury sub-brand, known for its use of precious metals and stones. .

Today, Titan enjoys over 60% of the Indian watch market, a level of dominance that even the old HMT could only dream of. Its reputation is built not just on the strength of the Tata name, but on decades of delivering what Indian consumers want. Walk into any Indian city today and you’ll see Titan watches everywhere: on the wrists of students, shopkeepers, techies, and retirees. The story of Indian watchmaking, once marked by skepticism and the shadow of “Mumbai specials,” has been rewritten by a homegrown brand.

-Vuk

This post was produced in partnership with Bangalore Watch Company and is part 2 in a three part series on the history and present of Indian watchmaking. Part three is coming on Tuesday, April 29.