With the volumes of the vision industry in the free fall and the luxury manufacturers who are constrained for a year of contracting income, some brands are turning into more selling models in an effort to stimulate the consumer’s interest. Some analysts are calling the movement a “flight to quality”.
It is a proven formula. During the financial crisis, brands and buyers of banks in classical to climb a sales drowsiness, while the uncertainties of the Pandemia gave the Pent-Up demand for standard models from well-known dial names such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet. A blend of “buying” post-fandemic revenge, market speculation and providing sustainable models saw that empty retail stores and pre-ownership of models such as Cosmograph Daytona and Rolex and Nautilus Patek Philippe pushed across the roof.
But since the explosion of Cryptocurrency bubbles in the spring of 2023 and between long-term effects of post-fandemic cost of living crisis, the demand for luxury hours has stalled. According to the Swiss Federation of the Swiss Industry, last year, volumes of watches from Switzerland exported nearly 10 percent from year to year to a historic low, while revenues received a 2.8 percent hit. At the same time, according to research by Morgan Stanley and Watchcharts, the prices of secondary market classes have fallen by 11 in a row by the end of last year.
“While consumers look at their dollars, they cut their shopping lists and only the most desirable brands stand on them,” says Luca Solca, managing director of the global Bernstein luxury goods. “This explains the great polarization we are seeing in all categories of products in hard and gentle luxury.”
Solca points to Rolex’s continued growth: according to estimates published in February by Morgan Stanley, the richest Swiss watch brand, recorded by SFR10.6BN ($ 12.1 billion) last year against sales of about $ 1.2 million, which would give it a 32 percent market share of nearly 10 percent in five years.
Rolex pie slices will increase this year, according to Solca. “The element that exacerbates this trend is the complete lack of any shedding,” he says. “While Rolex can meet the demand, there is less reason to find a substitute in Omega, IWC, Zenith or anywhere else.”
Brian Duffy, the chief executive of the Watches of Switzerland Group, one of the world’s largest sellers of Rolex and Patek Philippe, has noticed the same. “Inevitably, when there is a nervousness in the market, you take risk avoidance,” he says. “And there is nothing dangerous to buy a rolesx or a patek. Brands that are more suburban, you will probably get a little less chance.”
Carsten Keller, the chief executive of Watch Online Marketplace Chrono24, says design classics are better in the secondary market. “When we look at the preferences of our viewing buyers in 2024, inheritance brands are the clear winners,” he says. “Customers have shown an undisputed evaluative response to brands and models that stand true to their design ethics and dedication to quality with a strategy of a sustainable market, non-hyper reactive.”
Jérôme Lambert, who recently returned as the chief executive of Jaeger-Lecoultre after an attack as the chief executive of her parent company Richemont, says how buyers look at a hourly purchase has changed.
“During the pandemic, many clients approached the purchases of vision as financial placement than personal purchases, often driven by speculative schedule,” he says. “Now, clients are looking for hours that are not only investments but significant objects to be precious for generations.”
According to Ilaria Resta, the chief executive of the Audemars Piguet, the trend creates a healthy pressure for her brand, a family company owned by claiming it has more than doubled its income over the last decade. “Times like this stimulate creativity in some way, and brands have to dig deep to use as much as possible,” she says. “Clients tend to look for safe shelters when uncertainty raises their heads.”
In Panerai, the focus for the next three years will be in its brilliance, a historical model with one of the most popular silhouettes in the model of the pillow and crown protection, a tactic that former Jean-Marc Pontroué executive chief will give dividends in a fragile market.
Tinat of panel lights
“The business will be flat in the coming years and we do not expect a new double -digit growth, but we are entering an era where the race is for the market share,” says Pontroué, whose successor in Panrai, Emmanuel Perrin, officially takes on Tuesday.
Industry insights say an advantage of the luxury industry that the industry has is that buyers have become more predictable. “The trends we are seeing in consumer behavior are global,” says Georges Kern, the chief executive of Breitling, adding that middle -century mid -middle models like chronomies and Navitimer perform worldwide and continue to support the brand. “The same models we sell in Switzerland, the US or China are also successful in other markets.”
Lambert agrees, describing a “global phenomenon and a universal trend”. This year, Jaeger-LeCoultre will focus its activities on its return, an Art Deco design from 1931 that continues to prevail brand collections and form its reputation with customers.
Resta says AP customers cannot be caught by age, as. “Interest in mechanical hours continues to grow stronger, whether we talk about younger generations or our more mature customers,” she says.
Nicholas Biebuyck, Tag Heuer’s heritage director goes further, suggesting that the models that appear among new customers are now forming brand behavior. “We have seen a generative delivery in the observation community,” he says. “Now, we have many young people who come with very different consumer behavior for previous generations that are about education and understanding of a brand and what it represents. And this has removed people from Hype -led design and has brought about a return to classicism.”
In Watches and Wonders Geneva this week, Tag Heuer will focus its strategy around Carrera, a chronographer that debuted in 1963, and reviving its Formula 1 clock in 1986 after marking its return as an official Formula 1. ” “Something that has become an icon over the decades is what people want.”
Tag Heuer’s Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph F1
Even so, the industry finds itself to guess the future of the future. The vision development cycle usually runs over the years, making the last minute changes in collections to accommodate sudden market changes but impossible. Panerai, for example, has already made its product assortment for 2026, with 2027 nearly 80 percent closed.
For a brand, climbing with what went before has become a rule. “Whenever we have tried to capture a specific tendency, age, gender or region of the world, it never works,” says Cynthia Tabet, Piaget’s leading marketing official. The new Piaget’s collection of trapezoidal -shaped watches, presented this week in Geneva, is based on a design from the late 1960s.
Age non -age models will not be enough to attract the industry from its fall, however, says Pontroué. The cost is also a factor. “As an industry we have been too fast to go too high,” he says, referring to the vision prices that grew up during the pandemic, as brands capitalized in demand. “The Swiss viewing industry and the luxury world have lost millions of clients in that race. We have to reconcept this audience in the opening price segment if we do not want to become just a haute couture place in the next 10 years.”
Last month, Kern and the Swiss private capital firm Partners Group checking Breitling announced that they had won the name of the historic Gallet call and would release vintage -inspired models of priced between SFR3,000 and SFR5,000. “The money is still there, the individual of high value is still buying, and the basics of the luxury clock industry remain strong,” he says. “As an industry, we need to focus on long -term growth, not short -term bumps on the road.”
Pontroué requires balance, however. “Even if the business is tougher, as it has been for 18 months, we must not forget to tell spectacular stories that capture the brand’s spirit, which enables us to penetrate new clients,” he says. “You need extravagance to its maximum, to keep mysticism and go beyond functionality that no one cares about.”
