Backstory: When time ran out on HMT watches

In 1961 a watch-making powerhouse was born in India. That year, Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT), barely eight years into its business of making machine tools for India’s fledgling manufacturing sector, tied up with Citizen Watch Company of Japan to set up the country’s first wristwatch manufacturing enterprise in Bangalore. It turned into a hugely successful enterprise. The company’s first watch, named Janata, was launched by none other than the prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

The demand for watches exploded in the newly independent nation and before long the Bangalore plant’s capacity ran out, leading to the setting up of multiple new factories across the country. For the first few decades, HMT made the basic hand-wound mechanical watches though later automatic watches followed. Through the first four decades of independence HMT with its apt slogan “Timekeepers to the Nation”, was synonymous with watches, at times accounting for 90 percent of their sales in the country. It had a few competitors like Timestar, Allwyn and some imports but together they added up to less than 10 percent.

In consonance with the spirit of the times the watches were given easily relatable names like Janata, Tarun, Nutan, Priya, Nishat and Kohinoor. As features like display of date and day were added, its watches entered newer market segments and on the eve of liberalisation HMT was producing nearly seven million watches a year.

But by then the company had begun to lose touch with the demands of a new generation which was looking for something more from watches than just the ability to keep time.

Enter Titan in 1987 as a joint venture between the Tata Group, and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO). Initially, it didn’t make much of a dent into HMT’s market share but it correctly estimated the growing demand for quartz watches and started manufacturing them.

Ironically, at that point HMT had already been selling quartz watches for over five years but with initial sales low, partly because of their higher prices, it decided not to push them. But the world outside India was rapidly adopting quartz technologies and it was just a matter of time before they became the predominant watch model in India. That happened by 1985-86 as the government also eased import restrictions on the parts needed for quartz watches. It was the beginning of the end for HMT and the beginning of Titan’s ascendancy.

By this time, HMT’s non-quartz watches too seemed decidedly outdated. The company hadn’t paid any attention to design and in the new era where a host of international brands were available to Indians, that was a huge drawback.

By the middle of the 1990s with its market share eroding, the watch business had turned loss maker for HMT though it continued to struggle for years before it was brought to a merciful close in 2016 when the government shut down the last plant. By then its accumulated losses had mounted to Rs 2500 crore.

Ironically, in its afterlife HMT watches have built a devout following, with clubs and interest groups on social media where collectors keep looking for older models.