The business of watches is undergoing its own recalibration. While China continues to struggle, India recorded 31.7 per cent growth and currently sits at No. 14 on the list of Swiss watch export markets for the period of January-August 2026, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH. For an industry that has traditionally looked westwards and towards established Asian markets for growth, that shift is significant.
If you need tangible proof of this, the country recently hosted the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève’s exhibition of the watches nominated in its 2026 edition. Brought to the country by Ethos Limited, the four-day showcase saw collectors and enthusiasts from all over the country fly in for a close look at watches that are otherwise difficult to see first-hand in India. The innovation in these timepieces was truly spectacular.
Innovation is the bedrock of the watch industry—it’s the seed that started the watch world, and the one that continues to fuel it today. And more and more stories of horological innovation are starting from within India. Our country is no longer simply a market waiting to discover international watch brands. It is becoming a place where watches are being conceived, designed, assembled, and increasingly, engineered with a distinctly Indian point of view. While Delhi Watch Company’s uniquely-designed, hyper-competitively priced Terra continues to grab the attention of the global watch world, there is also a proliferation of Indian microbrands that are exploring a variety of themes in craftsmanship and execution (‘India by Design’, P. 52). Behemoth Titan, meanwhile, continues down the path of serious mechanical watchmaking with the launch of its branded base calibre Vetra (‘All in Good Time’, P. 86), which powers timepieces in the Automatics collection. And there’s Bangalore Watch Company, dedicated to telling stories of modern India—it has raised seed funding of US $1.4 million through its own customers.
And if you need convincing about whether there is rising interest and demand for watchmaking in India, the fact that Ethos Watch Boutiques surpassed 100 stores in the country is a strong indicator of how watch culture is evolving here (‘Home Run’, P. 64). WatchTime India, too, stepped into this world, collaborating with French microbrand Baltic and e-commerce retail platform No Hype Horology to create the limited, inspired-by-the-Indian-watch-collector watch, the MR India. Priced at `85,000, it sold out in three-and-a-half days (‘In Step With the Times’, P. 28).
What connects all these efforts is not a single definition of ‘Indian watchmaking’. It is the willingness to experiment. That, ultimately, is what makes this moment so exciting. Innovation does not always arrive as a revolutionary calibre or an exotic complication. Sometimes it is a new material, a new manufacturing method, a new business model—or simply the confidence to tell an Indian story in the language of contemporary horology.
For this issue, we look at that changing landscape: The ideas, people, and watches that suggest how the industry is growing both internationally and locally. And how India is not merely participating in the global watch conversation any more. It is beginning to add its own voice to it.
Images: Courtesy brands
