Swiss Watch Market Trends in Recent Years: High-End Goods, Expensive Prices, and Expanding Exports

Swiss watches, many people know. Swiss watches are well known in the market, with high user awareness, high-end goods and expensive prices. Switzerland is known as the country of watches. Swiss watch products have good quality issues and have high popularity in today's world and are loved by buyers all over the world. At present, China is the fastest expanding market for Swiss watch exports, and the watch industry has become a key area for Chinese enterprises to invest in Switzerland. The potential for cooperation between China and Switzerland in the watch industry is huge. Seven out of every ten watches exported around the world are from Switzerland. Exports from the Swiss watch industry have been rising steadily. Swiss mechanical watches often use precious metals or stones as decorations and are sold to an upper class group of buyers. In recent years, we have witnessed an acceleration of polarization in the watch industry. Some brands have performed well, enabling them to reinvest in their products and marketing, creating a virtuous cycle that further boosts sales. These brands are growing profits faster than turnover. In short, the more a brand sells, the more profitable it becomes, which provides additional means to increase visibility. This is most evident with Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and Richard Mille among the four brands that have seen the strongest growth over the years. This is followed by a second tier consisting of Cartier, Omega, Longines and Universal. While the year-on-year base for 2021 is necessarily low, we can emphasize a few key points.One is the increased polarization of the market, now led by Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, and a few other brands that have performed well over the years (the Morgan Stanley report was the first to find this in 2018).

We can now add Breitling to this list (although Breitling is privately controlled rather than family owned), but it is making significant progress, with revenues up 401 TP3 T. These five brands account for almost half of the Swiss watch market and 431 TP3 T of industry sales.

More broadly, the top five most important brands accounted for more than half of the market share and accounted for 53% of industry revenues. 13 brands accounted for 75% of the market share and 25 brands accounted for 90% of the market share.

Finally, there is the secondary market. Estimated to be about half the size of the new watch market, the secondary market is probably the most attractive market for brands.

Used resale price points give you a good idea of the scarcity of supply in the primary market. Some watches are available at a premium to the retail price, which can be as high as 50-150%. Such things happen outside of symbolic items such as the Rolex Daytona, Patek Philippe Nautilus or Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. Overall price levels are at Knight's all-time highs, sparking concerns about the end of a speculative bubble that is likely to burst.