Business Today 12 October 2025

Luxury has a long and storied lineage in India. It was in 1903 that Jamsetji Tata built India’s first luxury hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai—a property that, even at the time, offered electricity, air-conditioning, elevators, and telephones in every room. While palaces and residences of the Indian royalty that were later converted into luxury hotels dominate today’s rankings (Rajasthan is India’s luxury hotel capital), the Taj set the tone for what luxury would come to mean in modern India. India’s market for luxury goods and services has expanded on the back of rising wealth. In 2014, the country had just over 192,000 individuals with a taxable income of over ₹50 lakh a year. By 2024, this number had risen nearly five-fold. The number of taxpayers with incomes between…

GROWING RICHER THE SIZE OF THE INDIAN LUXURY MARKET IS EXPECTED TO GROW RAPIDLY AS THE NUMBER OF TAXPAYERS WITH ANNUAL INCOME MORE THAN ₹50 LAKH HAS RISEN FROM 192,000 IN FY14 TO 940,000 IN FY24 SOURCE CMIE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK 318,000 THE NUMBER OF TAXPAYERS WITH ANNUAL INCOME BETWEEN ₹1 CRORE AND ₹10 CRORE IN FY24. THIS INCREASED 320% IN 10 YEARS 6,600 THE NUMBER OF HOUSING UNITS PRICED OVER ₹6 CRORE SOLD IN H12025. A TOTAL OF 132,000 UNITS WERE SOLD, OF WHICH 11% WERE PREMIUM (₹3–6 CRORE) AND 5% LUXURY (ABOVE ₹6 CRORE) WHERE THE MONEY GOES INDIANS SPEND THE MOST ON JEWELLERY WHILE AMERICANS SPLURGE ON APPAREL AND FOOTWEAR SOURCE KEARNEY ANALYSIS LUXURY HOMES THE SHARE OF LUXURY AND PREMIUM HOUSING IS RISING AT A STEADY PACE…

The Indian luxury car market has two sets of customers. One has consumed luxury since childhood. The second is a first-timer. For Mercedes-Benz, both are equally important for the growth of the market. Santosh Iyer, MD & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India, discusses the evolution of luxury in the Indian market in an interview with Chetan Bhutani. Edited excerpts: CB: Has the meaning of luxury changed for Indians from owning something expensive to experiences, personalisation, or even eco-friendly values? What does luxury mean for Mercedes-Benz? SI: I keep quoting Coco Chanel in many of my thoughts to our teams as well our partners: Luxury starts when necessity ends. Most of our customers have multiple vehicles, and it is an additional car for them. You must look at luxury from that perspective. For…

WHEN THE FAIRMONT Udaipur Palace opened its doors this April, it did not slip quietly into Rajasthan’s backdrop of havelis, becoming another palace hotel. The sprawling 327-room Rajput-style structure built into the Aravallis and spread across ballrooms, gardens and terraces, launched with a spectacle: a 700-guest wedding. The hotel was sold out on Day 1. Over the next few weeks, it hosted 19 more weddings through the summer months (considered off season), each generating ₹5-6 crore. Starting October and all the way to March, when the high season begins, the property is booked for seven-eight weddings a month, with bills exceeding ₹10-11 crore per wedding. In India, the peak wedding season is between November and February, when business is brisk. “What Udaipur lacked was scale,” says Somesh Agarwal, Chairman and…

THE RAVI SHANKAR SUITE at The Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai is the epitome of luxury. Named after the sitar maestro, this is the room where, in the mid-1960s, he taught George Harrison of The Beatles how to play the sitar. Quite appropriately, it is the venue for a chat on luxury with Puneet Chhatwal, MD & CEO of The Indian Hotels Company. Edited excerpts: How has the Taj journey been? We are a 122-year-old brand. For the first 70 years, there was only one Taj, where we are currently seated. We then had a couple more like Rambagh Palace in Jaipur and Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur. One became three and three became five, and in 2017, we had 33 Taj hotels in operation. Today, that number has trebled,…

IN REAL ESTATE, what comes after luxury? Developers, investors, and affluent homebuyers, as if answering this very question, are shaping a new category in India—Branded Residences. Here, hotel operators lend their names, management, and design ethos to high-end apartments. These are now popping up across India’s wealthiest cities and leisure destinations. The ‘Landscape of Branded Residences Report 2024’ by hospitality focused research and advisory firm NOESIS Capital Advisors defines the segment as mixed-use developments where residential apartments are sold alongside a hotel with both jointly branded and managed. These residences are designed with hotel-like service standards, while still retaining layouts expected in a home—kitchens, multiple bathrooms, and living spaces adapted to Indian preferences. The promise? A blend of exclusivity and prestige, attributes that resonate with India’s expanding class of high-net-worth…