Titan acquires wearables start-up HUG Innovations

Titan Company Ltd, the Tata Group’s watch and jewellery retailing arm, has announced the acquisition of smart devices manufacturer Hug Innovations Corp, as part of its strategy to focus on the fast-growing wearable market. The 23-member team of HUG Innovations, which joined Titan on January 1 this year, will form the Hyderabad Development Centre and help with its expertise in hardware, firmware, software and cloud technology. 

Titan also gets access to HUG Innovations’ consumer platform and IP. Raj Neravati, founder, HUG Innovations, has been appointed as the AVP and head of technology for wearables, Titan Company. However, Titan declined to divulge the value of the acquisition.

“We want to move from devices and hardware to developing a complete connected ecosystem. We want to engage with customers not just till the purchase of a Titan product but continue to engage after the purchase. We want to move away from number of units sold, to monthly active engagements with customers,” said S Ravi Kant, CEO, watches and wearables business, Titan Company. 

The company, he said, will look for coming up with between 4-5 products in the wearable segment every year and is also open to more acquisitions in future. Kant added: “Earlier, we worked with partners like HP and Intel to launch smartwatches and worked with a few start-ups to launch a smart band. We are also working very closely with a company in Singapore to develop some of our products. But now, with the acquisition of HUG Innovations, we believe the time has come to develop tech capability inhouse.” Incorporated in 2015, HUG Innovations publicised a fitness band available on Amazon for Rs1,799 and a smartwatch for Rs4,499.

Titan Connected X launched

Titan announced the launch of ‘Titan Connected X’, a full-touch smartwatch with analogue hands, priced at Rs 14,995. This is its 13th product in the smart wearable portfolio, which will be available in all its stores in March since it began its wearable journey in 2016 with the launch of Juxt