India is a very powerful luxury market: Lladró

Fernando Gallego Cruz, Global sales director, Lladró

Three brothers, Juan, José, and Vicente Lladró were studying art when, in 1953, they decided to build a kiln at their parents’ home in Almacera, in the city of Valencia, on Spain’s eastern Mediterranean coast.

With classical figurines, jugs, vases, porcelain flowers, and candelabras as some of the first objects they sculpted, they began by selling at a local market and established it as a business in 1956. Due to increasing demand, they eventually moved out from their small family workshop to a factory in the town of Tavernes Blanques, which to date, is still the headquarters and the only factory of Lladró, the 69-year-old iconic brand that creates pieces of art with porcelain.

Traditionally known for its exquisite and iconic characters in porcelain, Lladró has embraced strategies to satiate the demands of millennials and diversified into lighting, lights and scents with lithophanes, and jewellery. It launches more than a hundred pieces every year, and has even collaborated with renowned external designers such as Paul Smith and Gary Baseman.

Lladró has presence around the world, with Japan, USA, Europe, India, and South Asia as the top five markets. In India, the brand made an entry in 2006, spread across seven cities, with a store in each. In 2017, the company was acquired by the PHI Industrial Group, a Spanish investment fund specialised in the active management of companies.

On a recent visit to India, Lladró’s global sales director Fernando Gallego Cruz, who has led the brand for 32 years, spoke to Forbes India about the brand’s growth, diversification, and its performance in the Indian market.

Edited excerpts.

Q. How has Lladró performed in the Indian market?
India is the third largest market for Lladró currently, after Japan and the US, and has always been among the top five markets for the brand. There are many special reasons for entering a market like India. First, it is a very powerful luxury market. It has always been considered the hub of art, culture, textiles, jewels, and more. Second, Indians are a lot into family, friends, and relationships, and so, have always been big on gifting. This is the case we’ve seen even with Indians outside the country.

The brand generates 10-12 percent of the global business. Despite Covid-19, in 2021, the brand saw 33 percent growth over 2020. Currently, it has further increased by 37 percent making it the highest success rate for Lladró in India. It is safe to say that we have touched pre-Covid levels in India.

While Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru are the top contributing cities, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai also continue to do good business.

Customers from tier 2 cities such as Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Surat, Meerut, and Guwahati have also shown a promising upward trend and have grown significantly over the past few years.

As far as our online presence is concerned, we are doing 2 to 3 percent of the business from online stores, which is not a lot compared to how the vertical is doing globally. We are big, fragile, expensive, and unique, which are perhaps not the best characteristics to be online. The mid-to-low priced items are doing well, but we are trying hard for the overall business to pick up as it is doing well globally.

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Q. What are the immediate plans for the brand in India?
We plan to open three more stores in the next two years. We will also be strengthening our ecommerce footprint and start retailing on Ajio Luxe in addition to our own online shop and Tata CliQ Luxury.

Q. Tell us about the products created for India.
With the growing luxury spiritual market of India, the brand works a lot on deities under the collection Spirit of India (SOI). The SOI collection contributed to 42 percent of the total business in India. This year, we launched the high porcelain Shrinathji priced at ₹9,50,000 and a limited-edition version of Lord Balaji for ₹4,98,000. Other successful products from the SOI collection include Lord Ganesha, goddess Lakshmi, Sai Baba, Lord Krishna, Hanuman, and Mahatma Gandhi.

Having said that, we also create non-spiritual work. We have had Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Indian dancers, children on the farm and more in the past as well.

(Clockwise from left) Lord Ganeshas: Matte- and gloss-finish porcelain figurines with a veena, flute, and mridangam, with gold lustre embellishments; Koi Set: Dining table accessories inspired by ornamental fish, a symbol of love and friendship; Forest Hare: Handcrafted in porcelain, and inspired by the plant motifs of the designer William Morris; Gondola of Love: Limited series porcelain sculpture of a goddess in a gondola full of flowers accompanied by two little angels; Sai Baba: Sculpted in gloss-finish porcelain. capturing the essence of an austere and kind character

Q. How do you ensure the products are catered to the Indian population?
In India, we launch two to four pieces a year, in two collections—the spring and the fall. We have one advisor in Valencia, who is actually a priest and helps us with the developing process. We get all the documentation from India, research a lot both internationally, and domestically. We play a lot with colours, expressions, positions, ornaments, and more, as they have to be perfect on deities as they might hurt religious beliefs, and for us, the SOI collection does really well.

Q. How has the global market performed?
Overall, we have grown 15 percent year-to-date, which is a pleasant growth considering the environment. Covid-19, the Russia-Ukraine war, which has affected most of Europe, has hit our markets too. Tourism is slowly recovering, so we are hoping for the business to pick up. In Spain and India, it might be relatively Covid-free, but it is still difficult in very high-performing markets like China where lockdowns make it complicated for the business. I’m very happy with where we are. We have only one factory, everything is handmade. So we can’t make a lot more, and can’t grow very fast. Growth has to be commensurate.

Q. Considering the stores are all over the world, why do you have only one factory?
Trying to make a factory everywhere for such a high-skilled job has never made sense for us. The minute details of sculpting are very difficult to pass and transfer. We don’t have any plans to open factories anywhere else. We will hire new people and train them under the watchful eyes of 200-plus artistes and sculptors in Valencia.