Swiss watch exports: Has the trough bottomed out?

Swiss watch exports: Has the trough bottomed out?

The Swiss Watch Industry Association reported declining growth and significant declines in many months of 2024, only rarely interrupted by a “slight recovery.” The final result was a loss of 2.8 percent to CHF 25.9 billion compared to 2023.

Now the Swiss Watch Federation has announced the long-awaited export growth. At just under CHF 2 billion, exports in January 2025 were 4.1 percent higher than in the same month last year.

Whether this will usher in a sustained recovery in demand, however, is questionable. Among other things, the shopping mood in the Chinese market, so important for the watch industry, will not return overnight. The reasons for this are the slowing economic growth there, the real estate crisis, and youth unemployment. All of this has hit and continues to hit consumption of luxury goods hard.

Return to growth

In January, at least the value of exports from the Swiss watch industry increased by 4.1 percent, while the number of units sold, at 1.1 million, was 4.2 percent lower than in January 2024.

Precious metal watches (+9.7% in value) and bimetallic models (+8.9% in value) were the main growth drivers in January, while steel watches declined in value (-2.4% in value) but increased by five percent in volume.

Watches priced above CHF 3,000 (export price) achieved growth of seven percent in value terms (volume +0.6%), while watches priced below CHF 200 remained close to their January 2024 performance in value terms (+0.7%), but also declined by 3.1 percent in volume terms.

USA performs well, China and Hong Kong weaken, Germany stagnates

The USA (+16.2% in value) maintained its position as the leading market for Swiss watch exports. Japan (+26.2% in value) saw a remarkable upswing. Hong Kong (-11.7% in value) and China (-29.1% in value), however, continued their downward trend and posted a distinctly weak performance.

Among the top ten markets, Singapore (+3.8 yen), the United Kingdom (+3.2 yen), the United Arab Emirates (+14.3 yen) and South Korea (+16.6 yen) showed increases, while Germany (-0.7 yen) and France (-3.7 yen) fell back compared to January 2024.