HMT

Hindustan Machine Tools was set up by the Government of India in 1953 to make machine tools near Bangalore.^1, 2

Its watchmaking came from Japan. Citizen Watch’s corporate history records a technical assistance agreement with India in March 1960, the same month as its import-export agreement with the American Bulova company.^1, 3

Time+Tide says Indian officials first approached the Japan Clock & Watch Association in 1959, that only Citizen’s president, Eiichi Yamada, wanted the work, and that India set a target of a million watches a year.⁶

ThePrint, drawing on parliamentary records, reports that Citizen was to hand over its know-how for £106,330 and a royalty of 2 per cent, and that Jawaharlal Nehru unveiled the factory’s first 800 watches, assembled from imported parts, at Bangalore on 28 July 1961.²

The plan was to make the parts at home: by ThePrint’s account component manufacture was to begin in January 1963 at 54 per cent Indian content, rising to 85 to 90 per cent by 1966.²

HMT Watches Limited’s own accounts name three watch factories, at Bangalore, at Tumkur in Karnataka and at Ranibagh in Uttarakhand.⁴

Wikipedia lists how the business grew: an extension at Bangalore in 1972, mainsprings and hairsprings there from 1975, a components works at Tumkur from 1978, later partly turned over to quartz analogue watches with Citizen, a watch-case works in 1983, and factories at Srinagar and Ranibagh; SJX counts five factories in all.^1, 7

The watch business became a separate company, HMT Watches Limited, wholly owned by HMT Limited; Wikipedia dates the change to 2000. The Srinagar factory belonged to another subsidiary, HMT Chinar Watches, Wikipedia records.^1, 4

ThePrint reports that the first output, about 15,000 watches, compared with a national consumption of about 1.5 million a year, and that production had reached about 240,000 by 1967.²

With imports restricted, SJX writes, buyers waited months for an HMT watch; it says HMT made nearly seven million watches in 1991, more than all its Indian rivals together, and over 115 million in its lifetime.⁷

Its range was mostly hand-wound mechanical watches; Wikipedia names the Janata as the most popular model. SJX says HMT made quartz watches from the 1970s but that they sold poorly because they cost more.^1, 7

Titan, set up by the Tata Group and Tamil Nadu in 1984, overtook it with quartz watches, Time+Tide and SJX say; the story is told under Titan.^6, 7

ThePrint records HMT’s first watch losses, of 90 crore rupees, in 1994, and a loss of 233.08 crore rupees in 2013-14.²

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the closure of HMT Watches Limited, conveyed to the company on 13 January 2016, with voluntary retirement for its employees; after a stay obtained by the Ranibagh workers was lifted on 18 March 2019, the closure took effect.⁴

In January 2023 HMT Watches assigned its trademarks, designs and logos to the parent, HMT Limited.⁴