The Next Chapter: Indian Watches for a Global Generation

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

On a Friday evening in Mumbai, the city’s newest luxury mall is alive with the hum of possibility. In the glassy atrium, a young woman in a linen dress stands before a wall of watches, her phone in one hand, a coffee in the other. She’s not here by accident. She’s read the reviews, compared models online, and already knows the reference number of the Omega she wants to see. The sales associate, used to browsers and impulse buyers, recognizes the difference immediately. This is the new Indian watch consumer: well-researched, globally aware, and unafraid to ask for exactly what she wants.

A decade ago, she might have waited for a trip to Singapore or Zurich to make her purchase. Now, she’s just as likely to buy it here, in India, where the boutique experience rivals anything abroad. The pandemic, with its travel bans and closed borders, forced a generation of Indian luxury buyers to look inward—and they discovered that the world’s best watches, and the service to match, were suddenly available at home.

This shift is more than anecdotal. The numbers tell the story: India’s watch market is booming, with growth driven by rising disposable incomes, a swelling middle class, and a new generation of buyers. Millennials and Gen Z, in particular, are driving demand. But it’s not just about the money. It’s about taste. Today’s Indian buyers are as likely to be found scrolling through Hodinkee as they are browsing a local retailer. They want history and heritage, a story on their wrist.

Women, too, are reshaping the market. No longer content with heavy jewelry, many are turning to luxury watches. They come into boutiques knowing exactly what they want, often with a shortlist of models saved on their phones. And then there’s the diaspora. From New Jersey to Nairobi, Indians abroad are searching for brands that speak to both their heritage and their cosmopolitan lives. They want a watch that feels like home, but also stands up to the scrutiny of global collectors.

All of this raises a tantalizing question: In a market this dynamic, is there room for a modern Indian watch brand—one that can capture the imagination of buyers at home and abroad, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s best?

Bangalore Watch Company didn’t begin in a Swiss valley or a family atelier. It began with a question, posed by two returning expats in a city better known for software than for watchmaking: Why shouldn’t India, with its centuries of craftsmanship and its new global confidence, make watches that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s best?

For Nirupesh Joshi and Mercy Amalraj, the answer was not just about filling a gap in the market. It was about rewriting the story of Indian design. “The grammar of Indian watch design is outdated—India is not just a country of gods, snake-charmers, and elephants anymore,” Joshi told Business Today in 2024. “India-themed watch designs are still stuck in the past, and we feel that modern stories like our space program, our sports, and our women personalities of 21st-century India should be brought out through thoughtfully designed narratives in watchmaking. That is what the brand set out to do, and that is what we’ve been doing since our founding in 2018.”

Their answer was to build a brand that would be as rigorous about quality as it was about narrative. Every BWC collection starts with a story, and the process is meticulous. “We look for deep and meaningful stories that inspire us and ones that could potentially inspire others. We then spend months in design figuring out how to translate the elements of the story into design features of the watch,” Joshi said. At the core of BWC are four collection, each dedicated to a meaningful story that ties back to a part of modern India: space, aviation, cricket, and most recently, outdoors.

The Apogee began as a tribute to India’s achievements in space but has since become the country’s first space-qualified watch. In 2024, the Apogee Karman Line edition was launched into the stratosphere, reaching over 34,000 meters and returning in perfect working order. Limited to fifty pieces and retailing at €2,700, the The Karman Line features a meteorite dial and a Swiss-made La Joux-Perret G100 Automatic movement, and a Matte Black Cerasteel™ case, with a unibody stainless steel inner core, and 100 meters of water resistance.

The Mach 1 collection pays homage to Indian aviation, drawing inspiration from the legendary MiG-21. Its design details—including a jet nozzle-shaped crown and cockpit-inspired dial—are paired with robust technical specs: stainless steel or titanium cases, sapphire crystals, Super-LumiNova for legibility, and 100 meters of water resistance. Prices for Mach 1 models start at €1,400.

For cricket fans, the Cover Drive offers a subtler nod to India’s national obsession. The bezel is marked with cricket scoring symbols, the dial is a deep green, and the Sellita SW200-1 movement ensures reliability. Like all BWC watches, it features a sapphire crystal and Super-LumiNova, with water resistance to 100 meters. Cover Drive models are priced between €1,000 and €1,300.

The Peninsula collection, introduced most recently, is BWC’s take on a modern outdoor watch. These models are engineered for adventure, with titanium or Cerasteel cases, 200 meters of water resistance, and dial colors inspired by India’s diverse geography. The Peninsula Professional, for instance, is priced from €1,100 to €1,900.

Bangalore Watch Co. is also adapt at making some pretty incredible limited editions. The Apogee’s Manzinus edition, launched in 2021, features a 9-mm disc of meteorite believed to be 4.5 billion years old, recovered from the border of Finland and Sweden. BWC’s MACH 1 Admiral, a limited edition of 70 pieces, went even further: its dial was made of steel recovered from the INS Vikrant R11, a storied Indian Navy aircraft carrier. Each piece came with a digital NFT to guarantee authenticity and provenance, a nod to the future as much as the past.

Across all collections, BWC maintains a consistent technical standard: Swiss Sellita automatic movements, sapphire crystals with anti-reflective coatings, Super-LumiNova on hands and markers, and robust water resistance. Watches are designed, assembled, and regulated in Bangalore, reflecting the brand’s commitment to both quality and local expertise. BWC’s pricing, from €750 to €2,700, places it firmly in the accessible luxury segment.

The process of bringing a BWC watch to life is a year-long journey, from the first sketches to the final assembly in Bangalore. “Our process of designing, engineering, and assembling watches in Bangalore is a meticulous journey that spans 12-14 months for each collection,” Joshi explained. The design team starts with mood boards and sketches, which evolve into technical drawings and 3D renderings. Only once the story and the design are perfectly aligned do they move to prototyping and, finally, to production.

Bangalore, Joshi points out, is “ground zero for watchmaking in India.” HMT was headquartered here, and the city still has a deep pool of skilled workers and suppliers. The assembly process is a labor of love, with each watch passing through the hands of trained watchmakers who check, regulate, and finish every piece.

The company’s approach to sales and service is equally personal. BWC has operated as an online-only brand, allowing for direct engagement with customers and a “white-glove” ownership experience. “We have almost a white-glove treatment with a very engaged, very vocal, owner’s community. Being a small brand, our owners value the direct interaction they have with Mercy or me when they call or email us. We’ve learned a lot from this,” Joshi shared in an interview. The unboxing experience is carefully curated, and feedback from owners is taken seriously, shaping future collections and service improvements.

The story of Indian watchmaking, once defined by imported movements and nostalgic design, is now being rewritten by a new generation of brands and buyers. Bangalore Watch Company stands at the forefront of this movement, but it is not alone. The company’s impact is visible in the way it has inspired other entrepreneurs and designers to think bigger, to see Indian stories as worthy of world-class execution. As one recent market analysis put it, Indian watch brands are “gaining popularity” and “expanding their retail footprint,” with BWC’s founders now recognized as the couple “putting India back on the horological map”.

-Vuk

This post was produced in partnership with Bangalore Watch Company and is part 3 in a three part series on the history and present of Indian watchmaking.