HMT (company)

HMT Kanchan Automatic wrist watch

In the year 1961, HMT set up a watch manufacturing Unit at Bangalore in collaboration with M/s Citizen Watch Co., Japan. The first batch of Hand Wound Wrist Watches manufactured here was released by the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The most popular mechanical hand-wound watch is HMT Janata. There are also other mechanical watches like HMT Pilot, HMT Jhalak (Semi Skeletal), HMT Sona, HMT Braille.

HMT Janata.

HMT Braille watch for visually impaired

The semi-skeletal HMT Jhalak.

HMT watches manufactured this skeleton watch based on 8N24 movement.

In 1972, HMT expanded its watch manufacturing capacity with a set up alongside the Bangalore Factory to manufacture additional watches. In 1975, Watch factory at Bangalore was further expanded to manufacture Main Spring, Hair spring and Shock absorber components.[11]

HMT set up additional manufacturing facilities to produce watch components sets at Tumkur and Ranibagh in the year 1978 and 1985 respectively. Watch factory at Tumkur was partially converted to manufacture Quartz Analog Watches in collaboration with M/S Citizen Watch Co, Japan. To cater to the Niche market, a specialised watch case manufacturing facility was set up at Bangalore in 1983.[11]

A photograph of quartz wrist watch by HMT.

Since 1985, HMT Watches had been involved in making Floral Clocks, Solar Clocks, International Clocks and Tower Clocks, most popular among them being the Garden clock in Bangalore. In the year 2000, HMT Watch Business group was re-structured as HMT Watches Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of HMT Limited.[11] In September 2014, the Government of India decided to shut down HMT operations in a phased manner. By late 2016, the website for HMT watches was pulled down. This would soon prove to be a temporary move as there arose a newfound demand for mechanical hand wound and automatic watches made by the company, both in India and overseas. This sudden increase in demand was due in part to the appearance of pre-owned HMT watches on online platforms such as eBay where they were being sold at prices several times higher than recent retail prices. Moreover, there has been a growing new interest in Indian watches such as HMT and Titan overseas ever since watch review channels started reviewing them on YouTube. The HMT Watches website was functioning again by the end of 2019, although a notification was put up to inform online visitors that HMT watches would now only be sold online and company-owned showrooms.

In September 2016, Government of India closed some divisions of HMT: HMT Watches Ltd, HMT Bearings, HMT Tractors, and HMT Chinar Watches Ltd. The main reasons were that the company was making losses for more than a decade. During 2012-13, the company had losses of Rs 242 crore on revenues of only Rs 11 crore. In contrast, competitor Titan's watch business reported sales of Rs 1,675 crore during the same year. The government also tried restructuring it in 1999 to improve its finances but the company continued to make losses. While in the 1980s several new companies entered the market with newer designs and more modern production techniques, HMT is said to have been hobbled by slow decision making and was unable to compete.[12] Machine tools divisions of HMT in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi (Kalamassery) are still operational and catering industrial and defence sectors of India and abroad. The Government of India is mulling takeover of HMT by Ordnance Factory Board.[13][14]