The Swiss watch brand has produced one of their well-known models for left-handers who want to wear the watch on their right arm.
(Photo: PR)
Dusseldorf The bezels shine, the watches shine in the shop window of the jeweler Laerbusch in Mülheim an der Ruhr. Some Rolex models have five-digit prices, next to them “Unsaleable exhibition copy”. Interested parties who would buy the watch immediately will get nothing – everywhere in Germany. Signs like those in the Saarn district of Mülheim are as much a part of the display as the ticking of a mechanical clock.
When jewelers from all over the world and manufacturers from Switzerland, Germany and Italy meet at the Watch and Wonders trade fair in Geneva from today, Wednesday, they can look back on a successful year 2021.
The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FHS) recorded an increase in sales that almost leveled off at pre-pandemic levels. Watches worth just over a billion euros were sold in Germany alone, in 2020 it was 887 million.
The Geneva-based brand Rolex has been at the forefront of the market for mechanical luxury watches for years. According to investment bank Morgan Stanley’s report “The Magnificent Seven”, Rolex achieved a market share of 28.8 percent by sales revenue.
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United with the six strongest competitors Omega (7.5), Cartier (6.9), Longines (5.6), Patek Philippe (4.8), Audemars Piguet (4.2) and Tissot (3.1). these “Magnificent Seven” accounted for almost 61 percent of the market – and the trend is rising. The Morgan Stanley report estimates that Rolex will continue to produce only around one million watches a year, although the company traditionally does not give any figures.
In addition to price increases, it is the concentration on high-quality models that supports this development. 73.3 percent of the proceeds were generated with watches costing more than 3,000 Swiss francs. In 2020, this proportion was still 70.4 percent.
Exports also grew strongly in 2021 to 22.3 billion francs – an increase of 31.2 percent compared to the crisis year 2020 and 2.7 percent compared to 2019. The number of watches, on the other hand, fell by 23.8 percent compared to 2019 to 15.7 million watches. There are fewer watches and they are getting more expensive – bad news for some customers.
The manufacturers are showing these new watches in Geneva
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