Titan-owned jeweler Tanishq has plans for a large-scale expansion across North America, setting its sights on the vast Indian diaspora market and hoping to reach native US consumers as well.

The company plans to open more than 15 new locations across the US in the next 12 to 18 months, Amrit Pal Singh, business head for Titan in North America, told Rapaport News Monday. The move is just the beginning of what will likely be a much broader foray over the next few years, including a push into the Canadian market by next year. Titan launched Tanishq in the US at the end of 2022 as part of a pilot, and has since opened the doors of seven locations, including in New Jersey, Illinois, California and Texas.

“Over the last two-and-a-half years, we have been overwhelmed by the response received from customers, which is really reflected in the fast scale-up and expansion the brand has seen in the US market,” related Singh. “We have been doing quite well ever since we launched, and we are quite bullish about our foray into this market, both on the Indian diaspora in the short term, as well as the broader American consumers in the medium term.”

The company is currently working on a two-phase strategy for the expansion. Its first objective is to focus on the 5 million-plus Indian diaspora whose members already see gold jewelry as part of their ethnic culture and base their locations on areas with strong concentrations of expats. Beyond that is the segment comprising first-generation Indian consumers who were born and grew up in the US. That sector, Singh feels, will bridge the gap into the general US market.

“They are as much American as they are Indian,” he explained. “They are open to traditional designs as well as contemporary designs. We are trying to understand the needs of this generation of Indians, who, for us, are a segue to the broader American consumer.”

So far, Tanishq has opened only stand-alone stores in high-street locations in the US market, to fit its displays of between 4,000 to 5,000 pieces of jewelry. However, it’s also evaluating new models and will open the first mall location in Florida shortly.

In the time the company has been active in the US market, it has not observed any impact on demand for its diamond jewelry, which has proved popular with consumers, Singh stated. Titan has been staunch in its stance on natural diamonds, noting that the Indian market had little interest in lab-grown. However, even though the US market is more open to synthetics, Singh said the jeweler had no intention of including them in its North American offering.

“Even in the US market, Tanishq is solely focused on natural diamonds, and we have no plans to enter the lab-grown diamond space,” he added. “We are a luxury jewelry brand, and we feel that natural diamonds, with their rarity and timelessness, are in a way apt for the brand. We continue to be focused on natural diamonds, and we don’t foresee that change.”

Courtesy: Rapaport

Image: The new Tanishq store in New Jersey. (Titan Company)