SJX Watches
State of the Industry: Vontobel on the Redrawn Watch Market
Last month Vontobel published its annual report on the Swiss watch industry, revealing a startling shakeup for the pecking order, with a rapidly growing share of the market going to industry giants, anaemic growth, and a few signs of hope. Another of the key points made in the report published by Vontobel, a family-controlled Swiss private bank, is influence of external factors beyond the industry’s control, like the strong Swiss franc and continuously climbing gold prices, but which have nonetheless played a major role in its recent development. Long the go-to publication for industry insiders, the Vontobel watch report has been published annually for well over a decade - and since 2021, the report has been authored by Jean-Philippe Bertschy, the bank’s head of Swiss equity research (pictured above). The strong franc Before getting into the numbers, it’s worth looking at the broader macroeconomic environment affecting the industry. The strong franc and weak dollar are headwinds for the export-oriented Swiss watch industry, and, like erratic US trade policy and soaring gold prices, entirely outside its control. In nominal terms, total Swiss watch exports declined for the second year in a row, down 1.7% to CHF25.5 billion, following a 2.8% decline the year before. However, the Swiss franc’s appreciation casts a more sympathetic light on these numbers. For example, if you sold a watch for US$100 this time last year, that revenue would have converted to about CHF90....
