Business is growing in double digits for Panerai in India, and the country could do with more real estate projects catering to the luxury industry, Jean-Marc Pontroue, CEO of luxury watchmaker Panerai told ET.
Panerai currently has three boutiques and also retails through ten multi-brand retailers across the country. It will launch its fourth boutique in Bengaluru soon.
“We are very optimistic about this country because we see the speed at which transformation is happening. But, we need to see more real estate projects in India catering to the luxury industry,” said Pontroue. “Interest from luxury brands, purchasing power of local people and the availability of luxury landscape. All these three factors need to move together. If you have the purchasing power but not enough malls, then you are missing business opportunities. Because Indians then buy in Singapore, Dubai, France, Switzerland and other markets,” he added.
Pontroue said Panerai has a good diversified split between territories and the drop in consumption in China is unlikely to have a major impact on the brand.
“Our biggest market is the US which is pretty sustainable. We are very strong in Japan, Singapore, Italy, France, Germany, Mexico, and the UAE. Earlier, we had many Chinese travellers all over the world. But there has been a big change in the flow of tourism post the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
“Today we have many more Europeans flying to Japan, Americans coming to Europe, and a greater number of Europeans flying to the US. We are continuing to monitor the situation but we haven’t seen a drop in our business because of the two conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East,” he added.
Panerai started focusing on the e-commerce business in 2018, and partnered with Tata CLiQ in India about 18 months ago.
“Two years before Covid hit us, we started focusing on our e-commerce business and we have scaled it to a level that today, we even have e-commerce special editions that you find only online,” said Pontroue.
“We launched a time capsule collection which was a limited-edition collection that was only available for 24 hours. The internet is a major tool, as long as it offers something different compared to what you find offline. It’s not a very important part of our sales except in markets such as the US. We also sell watches at price points like ₹10,000 so, it depends on the exposure of the market. But it certainly helps with storytelling and visibility,” he added. Only 150 pieces are available worldwide for Panerai’s Elux LAB ID limited edition collection watch priced at ₹94 lakh in India. Unlike other competitors, Pontroue does not foresee diversification into other luxury product.
