Business News
Swiss watch exports totaled 1.8 billion Swiss francs (CHF) in September 2019, a 10.8 percent increase over the year prior. through three quarters of 2019. the value of exports totals CHF 15.9 billion, an increase of 2.8% compared with last year.
As has been the case, precious metal and gold-steel bimetal watches continued to drive much of the growth. Meanwhile, the volume of steel watches exported was down, though slightly less so than in recent months. So, even with all the hype surrounding certain stainless steel models and another brand introducing its own stainless steel offering seemingly every week, these watches are not primary drivers of the industry as a whole. While it might be wise from a strategic point of view to have a stainless steel sports watch in your lineup, these aren’t the big ticket items driving exports as a whole.
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Note: This is not a paid placement in any way; it’s simply a writeup about my buying experience with Chronext.
Towards the beginning of 2019, I set out to buy a new — or gently worn, pre-owned — watch. I had my eyes on a Nomos Club Campus, but knowing new watches like this tend to lose at least 25% of their retail value once you take them home from the authorized dealer, I was reticent to buy at full retail price.
Like any decent enthusiast, I set up my alerts and scoured the forums to find one at a pre-owned discount. I also checked the grey market and pre-owned websites that the watch community loves to hate: Watchbox, Crown and Caliber, Watchfinder, and so on.
But one kept popping up that I’d never heard of before: Chronext. As I tried to dig into the company, it turns out not many others had heard of it either. They raised $34 million at the beginning of 2018 and the company was seeking another $25 million at the beginning of 2019, but I couldn’t find much on the actual customer experience. Most of all, one thing stood out about Chronext: The low prices.
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The Swiss watch industry reported an export value of 1.5 billion Swiss francs (CHF) in August 2019, an increase of 1.5% compare to one year prior. This continues the slow upward trend of 2019; through 8 months, export growth is at 1.9%. It’s not a bad showing considering the global political and economic challenges, but is substantially down from the industry’s strong 2018 which saw growth of 6.3%.
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It seems the media embargo is up, with seemingly dozens of publications publishing their Apple Watch Series 5 review today (The Verge and Hodinkee being perhaps the best). But, I always look to Jonathan Gruber’s Daring Fireball for the best and hottest Apple takes. He’s particularly adept at explaining his experiences with the Apple Watch from the perspective of a self-professed watch lover. He’s talked about his love affair with his Rolex Submariner before, explaining that, even as an Apple fanboy, he prefers analog watches.
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While Naomi Osaka may have closed out the first weekend of the U.S. Open with a loss, the defending champion’s wrist looked good while doing it. The Citizen Ambassador was wearing a titanium Citizen Eco-Drive throughout her tournament, including in her third-round defeat of U.S. phenom Coco Gauff, where she displayed some real class in victory.
Osaka was also wearing a Citizen Eco-Drive when she won last year’s U.S. Open and this year’s Australian Open. She was wearing the same Eco-Drive model in a different colorway in last year’s U.S. Open, but the one she was wearing this year U.S. Open might be the best yet.
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While there’s plenty of places in Chicago to go shopping for watches (see my list here), there’d always been a certain lack of brand boutiques that meant Chicago could never compete with cities like New York, London, or even Miami or Los Angeles as a watch shopping destination. In almost an instant, that’s changed, with the opening of three boutiques from Richemont’s stable of brands.
IWC, Panerai, and A. Lange and Sohne have all announced the opening of brand boutiques at 11 E Walton Street, in the Waldorf Astoria hotel.
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This is our first partnership post, from our friends over at NOMOS Watch Club. We’re always looking for fun and interesting partnerships, so if you’re interested, please reach out.
Our friend Christopher over at NOMOS Watch Club recently paid a visit to Berlinerblau, the Berlin-based in-house design and marketing firm of Nomos Glashutte. Berlinerblau is home to about 40 Nomos employees, all of whom are singularly focused on created the “Nomos look”, perhaps the finest modern execution of the Bauhaus aesthetic, in watches or elsewhere.
Christopher sat down for an interview with Nomos product designer Thomas Höhnel, who provided some insights on the watch design process, working at Nomos, and the future of the Glashutte watchmaker.
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Earlier this year, Zenith announced its Zenith Defy El Primero Boutique-Exclusive Limited Edition. It’s a cool modern watch, and an astounding technical achievement: the Defy El Primero 21 beats at a frequency of 360,000 vph (50 Hz), ten times that of its El Primero predecessor, enabling 1/100th of a second precision. But still, I didn’t think much of it — brands try to do boutique exclusives all the time to get people into their stores. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
The Zenith Defy was originally launched back in 1967, but Zenith revamped the line in 2017 (thanks, Jean-Claude Biver). Since then, it’s become a staple of Zenith’s collection and a platform for some of its most innovative experiments and concept watches.
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Swatch Group reported sales of 4.1 billion Swiss francs (CHF) for the first half of 2019, down 3.7% compared to the year previous. Meanwhile, net income of CHF 415 million was down 11.3% compared to the previous year, while net margin also shrank slightly.
As I covered in the Swiss watch exports report last week, the Hong Kong market saw significant declines due to political turmoil, which Swatch Group was not immune from, though it did report growth in all price segments its other major markets (U.S., mainland China, Japan). I highlight the “all price segments” language because the Swiss watch industry as a whole has experience a continued decline in sales in the low- and mid-price segments. It’s interesting that Swatch is reporting growth in all of these price segments in these major markets, showing that there is not just demand for high-end luxury timepieces, at least in the major markets.
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In case you didn’t know, July 20th marked the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. My weekly newsletter was basically moon themed, I’ve covered results from Sotheby’s special Speedmaster auction, and I’m sure everyone is tired of the Speemaster wrist shots everyone else is posting on Instagram.
I’ve got one more (I promise) moon-themed post, and it’s just to highlight an awesome watch Unimatic released that sold out almost instantly. I’ve highlighted the Italian brand before, as I’ve long loved their classic Italian-inspired dive watches (think Panerai, kind of, but not really), but with a modern, minimalist twist.
To celebrate the moon landing, Unimatic released a special limited edition of its Modello Uno, calling it the Unamtic U1-SP (SP for “Space Program”). Production was limited to just 50 pieces, and it sold out almost as soon as Unimatic announced it.
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Swiss watch exports dropped 10.7% in June 2019 compared to the year previous, totaling 1.7 billion Swiss francs (CHF) for the month. Units sold was down 17%. The first half of 2019 ends with an increase of 1.4% over the previous year, with total exports at over CHF 10 billion. It’s a slow down from the first quarter, when exports were up 2.9%.
In short, the story of June was a few less purchases of high-value precious metal (or two-tone) watches that allow the industry to report top line growth while in reality much of the market outside of the high end is struggling.
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Luxury online consigner The RealReal (TRR) has gone public on the Nasdaq, raising $300 million in an initial public offering, valuing the company at $1.6 billion. The IPO comes just days after sneaker marketplace StockX raised a new round of funding at a $1 billion valuation. and brought in a grown up to be the new CEO (sorry, backwards hat guy). The pre-owned, used, retail, whatever you want to call it space is heating up, and investors have been taking notice.
The RealReal, along with Poshmark and Thred Up, are the leading players in the resale sector. TRR offers a diverse selection of luxury items, including clothing, jewelry, art, home goods, and yes, watches. The company, founded in 2011, seeks to separate itself by authenticating every item that it consigns on its site. To consign goods on the site, you schedule an appointment with one of their authenticators, who checks out your goods and makes sure they’re legit.
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Exports in the Swiss watchmaking rose 11.4% in May to just over 2 billion Swiss francs (CHF). Much of the increase was driven by the “other products” category, which is so often ignored — it was up 62% year-over-year — apparently people bought a lot of alarm clocks and small clocks last month. Growth in wristwatches was up 8.6% in terms of Swiss francs, but down 9% in terms of units sold. This continues the trend to selling fewer, higher-priced precious metal and two-tone watches.
The numbers are a positive rebound for the industry after it saw exports drop 0.4% in April; this was after exports grew a steady 2.9% in the first quarter of 2019.
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Probably the most important question about a watch is its provenance. Where did it come from, and can you prove that it came from where you say it did? For centuries, this has meant having a watch’s “box and papers” to sell alongside the timepiece itself. These box and papers are thought to provide proof that the watch is legitimate, and that the buyer can proceed with confidence.
In reality, there’s not a full-proof way to be sure that the box and papers being offered alongside the watch are legit. These papers can be forged, faked, or tampered with, and with the money to be made in vintage watches, the motivation certainly exists.
Vacheron Constantin is hoping to use blockchain technology to chain that. A blockchain, by design, is an open, distributed ledger that can record a transaction between two parties in a verifiable and permanent way.
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Shares in Britain’s biggest watch retailer Watches of Switzerland Group Ltd rose by as much as 15% on their debut on the London Stock Exchange on Thursday. Shares climbed to as high as 315 pence per share, from an initial price of 270 pence. On its second day of trading, May 31, shares stabilized a bit, closing the day at 308 pence.
The listing of 34% of the company was set to raise around 220 million pounds ($278 million), valuing the retailer at 647 million pounds. The 270 pence initial price was already at the top end of the range initially targeted for the deal, suggesting strong demand for the retailer which accounted for half of all Rolex watches sold in the UK in 2018, in addition to being the UK’s largest retailed of Patek Phillipe, Cartier, Omega, TAG Heuer, and Breitling.
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After a strong first quarter of 2019, Swiss watch exports slowed in April, down 0.4% compared to April 2018. It’s a dose of reality for the industry, after exports grew a total of 2.9% throughout the first quarter. April’s low sales bring growth through 2019’s first four months down to 2.1%.
The total value of exports in April was still higher than that in March, but growth was down because of a strong comparison base to April 2018. The trend toward precious metals and two-tone (gold-steel) timepieces continued, with the categories up 4% and 5.2%, respectively.
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Of course, just a few days after I write about my favorite “made in America” watches, everyone’s favorite American-based brand releases its own Made in American collection. But that’s what Timex has done with its new American Documents collection.
Timex was founded as the Waterbury Clock Company in 1854 in Waterbury, CT, and has called that area of Connecticut home ever since. Today, even though Timex USA is a subsidiary of Dutch-based Timex Group, there is still a strong corporate presence in Middlebury, CT, the home of its US headquarters.
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Less than a week after rival luxury conglomerate LVMH posted a strong first quarter of 2019, sending the stock to record highs, Kering barely matched expectations. Kering shares fell 6 percent on Thursday after signs of slowing growth from the Q1 earnings. And while watches and jewelry aren’t a large part of Kering’s business, the group’s earnings may point towards the general trend of slowed growth in luxury goods.
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Swiss watch exports had their strongest month of 2019 in March, growing at 4.4% with a value of 1.7 billion Swiss francs (CHF) for the month. Total exports for the first quarter of 2019 totaled CHF 5.1 billion, a 2.9% increase over the first quarter of 2018. The total value of exports was significantly boosted by a steep rise in precious metal and bimetal watch exports.
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It’s not every day that the fashion and legal worlds truly collide, but that’s what happened yesterday when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Iancu v. Brunetti. The case involves California skate/steetwear brand “Fuct.” So as a lawyer, I had to write about it. Fuct, founded by Erik Brunetti in 1990, has been a fixture of skate and streetwear culture since its founding. Brunetti’s lawyer, John Sommer, who also happens to be general counsel at Stussy, promised that any references to “vulgar terms” would not be necessary during his oral argument, or if necessary, “the discussion will be purely clinical, such as when medical terms are discussed.”
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