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Swiss watchmakers put employees on state-funded leave as luxury demand disappear
- reiichiroh 2y agoI look forward to these going the way of Vertu.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoIt’s not temporary, the population pyramid is teetering.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoI can’t remember the last time I saw someone wearing a watch other than an Apple Watch. Maybe a couple Android watches.
- orwin 2y agoMost people who spend substantial time on/in the water have a real watch or two (it's on the water for me).
- mc32 2y agoIt's not the same market at all. They're talking about luxury brands --when the economy becomes less bubbly, people retrench. That sales engineer puts off buying the luxury car, luxury watch and boat or whatever else they'd buy in better times.
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- damontal 2y agoWhich is why I break out my G Shocks every once in a while. I get sick of seeing Apple watches everywhere. The problem is they’re so damned useful so I always come back to it.
- tushar-r 2y agoI gave up on my Garmin when the battery went out and started using my G-Shock. I don't really miss the smart watch features a few months since I made the change.
- al_borland 2y agoI’ve owned several Apple Watches, but none currently. I wear an automatic watch on a typical day, and have a Casio as my beater/travel watch (and about a dozen more I can probably pair down now that I think I have my perfect 2 watch collection). I got sick of smartwatches. One more thing to change every night. One more thing to debate upgrading all the time. One more home screen to manage. More apps to update and deal with. More notifications and interruptions. It’s all too much. With a little maintenance, my go-to watch will outlive me. My travel watch just needs a new battery when I renew my passport.
- shiroiushi 2y ago>I got sick of smartwatches. One more thing to change every night. This is exactly why I got a cheap $35 "Amazfit" fitness band (a clone of a Xiaomi Band 5 I think). It does things a normal watch won't do, namely count my steps every day and also monitor my sleep patterns, but it goes 2 weeks on a charge, or more. I've never understood why anyone would put up with a watch that needs to be recharged every day. How do you even use it as a sleep monitor if you have to charge it? Of course, a fitness band like this also doesn't come with so much extra crap like you're referring to ("more apps to update and deal with"); it's comparatively simple.
- jack_pp 2y agoI don't know if I'd trust cheap knockoffs to give me accurate information on my health. Hell I don't even trust expensive health tracking gadgets, I remember watching some YouTube videos showing how different watches give you different readings
- pandaman 2y agoThis. Mi Band is already junk as far as any data goes. Mine was showing sleep starting hours before going to bed and heart rate was comically wrong from time to time (like in "riding up a 2 mile hill while staying under 80 bpm" wrong).
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- Kon-Peki 2y ago> I can’t remember the last time I saw someone wearing a watch other than an Apple Watch. Maybe a couple Android watches. You probably aren't actively looking. The market for sub-$150 retro-ish ("inspired" by the 1980s/1990s) quartz watches has exploded over the last few years [1]. A month or so ago, I "splurged" and bought a $300 solar-powered analog quartz watch. It will need a $10 battery replacement once every 15 years or so, and is simple enough to do at home with tools I already have. This is just my opinion (and you seem like you are the opposite - that's fine), but I think that Apple has completely lost the plot with the Watch concept. It was supposed to be a companion device to the phone that helped reduce screen time while not missing anything important. Now, the Apple Watch is trying to be a kitchen sink on your wrist, with a battery situation that makes no sense. If you were to do all the health tracking it is capable of, you'd need to wear that watch 24 hours a day. But the battery doesn't even last that long. So you can't actually fully use all of the features. It makes no sense. My Apple Watch has been in a drawer for I don't even know how many months. Where it will probably stay. [1] https://www.casio.com/us/watches/casio/vintage/ https://www.casio.com/us/watches/casio/vintage/
- fallinditch 2y agoCasio make some great watches, I bought a solar powered model recently for 50 bucks, it's very decent! [1] I've never felt the need to get a smart watch, they seem badly hobbled by their need for frequent charging, and the Apple watch is so common that it signifies the opposite of fashionable and stylish, more utilitarian and conventional. [1] https://www.casio.com/us/watches/casio/product.AQ-S800W-1B2V/ https://www.casio.com/us/watches/casio/product.AQ-S800W-1B2V...
- jl_418 2y agoApple’s Ultra watches have up to 36 hours / up to 72 hours in low-power mode- but they are more than I would spend want to spend on a smartwatch ($799).
- martin_a 2y agoHave a look at Fossil then. I'm wearing one and it's nice. Still has a mechanical watchface so it does not look like a smartwatch, but it got some features. I've turned notifications on only for messages, mails and calls, not for every other app. Runtime is great, like a week or more, depending on use, and it still does heart rate monitoring and step counting.
- Dalewyn 2y agoIt definitely correlates with generation; the younger more often have either smartwatches or nothing, while the older more often have jewelrywatches. Those in-between more often have watches. I do think the general popularity of jewelrywatches is dropping as the generations turn over, though. It's a lot harder to convince the old generations of tomorrow to fork over thousands of dollars on a jewelrywatch; status symbols come and go.
- shiroiushi 2y agoYeah, I have a (much) older sister who spent a bunch of money (that she didn't really have to spare) on a secondhand Rolex, because it was apparently some kind of lifelong dream of hers to own such a watch. I really don't understand it, but I'm not a Boomer, so I guess I never will.
- wenc 2y agoI used to wear a Tissot, but my Apple Watch is so much more practical. I never thought I'd go for Apple Watches since they look so.... nerdy. But within a week of wearing one, I was sold. Today, I use it to Apple Pay for everything without whipping out my phone or wallet, from restaurants to transit (with Express Transit I don't even have to double click -- I just point my wrist at the card reader). It tracks my sleep so I know to compensate accordingly if I'm not well rested... as in adjusting how much caffeine to consume. Its alarms wake me up gently by buzzing (haptics) as opposed to a shrill phone alarm. I can glance at it to see when my next meeting is, so I know how much time I have to dawdle. (I need my down time throughout the day) It tells me how loud a room is in dB. You might ask, can't you tell by just listening? Yes, but when I know it in dB, I know whether the ambient noise is going to affect me over a long period of time and that I should use ear plugs or put on ANC headphones. 30-40 dB is ok, but anything above that is annoying. You don't realize how noisy a city truly is -- and cutting that noise out can really do wonders for head space. It helps me to navigate while walking in the city -- it's easier and works better than than holding up a phone. I only charge it when I shower (it goes from nearly 10% to full in minutes), otherwise I wear it 24/7. You can do all of this with a phone, but having all of it on your wrist is just that much more seamless. (no need to whip out your phone) I didn't miss my Tissot at all.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoPeople who wear are Rolex are not the same people who now wear an Apple Watch instead. They also don't necessarily wear their Rolex when they go out to the store or places where you might pass them by.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago> I can’t remember the last time I saw someone wearing a watch other than an Apple Watch. Maybe a couple Android watches. I agree, most people I see are wearing an Apple Watch. I personally haven't bought one as I don't see the need. I take my phone with me everywhere already, why do I need duplicate functions on the watch? And for those occasions where I might not have my phone with me -- it's almost always by design and I don't want notifications on a watch. I also don't want to hassle with charging a watch daily or every other day. So I'm not switching from my analog watch anytime soon.
- pleb_nz 2y agoGarmin are fairy popular in my circles and area.
- Glyptodon 2y agoI wear a Timex weekender sometimes, especially if I don't want to be using my phone. I love how you can get a pile of different bands with all kind of color and materials. But I don't wear it regularly.
- UncleOxidant 2y agoThese Swiss watches are status symbols for people that are over 60. Which means their market is dying off.
- benoau 2y agoI would expect demand to slide a lot further as countries crack down on corruption.
- DamnYuppie 2y agoHow much of that market do you think or know was bought with corrupt money? Looking at it from the outside there were big gains in crytpo and the stock market. Which drove a lot of buying. Now as there are wars raging, uncertainty about the biggest economies in the world and what their output will be in the coming years seems to be playing a larger part than corruption from what I am seeing. Also the high end watch manufacturers seem to be shooting themselves in the foot by trying to control the secondary market for used watches which has driven used prices up. I feel the prices are at a point now where even very affluent people may not want to spend money on them as they are way overpriced compared to just 4 years ago.
- benoau 2y agoI would totally accept there is a legitimate market for watches in the tens of thousands - millions of dollars, and people who can acquire that legitimately. But I have also seen many luxury watches in particular be a vector for identifying corruption, so I would expect a lot more corruption-funded purchases especially given how conveniently you can move hundreds of thousands of dollars in that form-factor.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago> I would expect demand to slide a lot further as countries crack down on corruption. Countries have been "cracking down on corruption" forever.
- alexjplant 2y ago> After three straight years of record exports, wholesale watch exports have fallen by 2.4% [...] The drop in consumer demand has hit brands making slightly less expensive watches the hardest, while top-selling brands such as Rolex and Patek Philippe have been more resilient. > Sowind’s Pruniaux said there are few signs of improvement from the Chinese economy, meaning the industry might only see a partial recovery in 2025. Sowind’s sales will likely be flat or will fall slightly in 2024, he said. That compares with growth of just under 10% last year and a near-doubling of sales in 2022. Seems like a bubble bursting to me...
- UncleOxidant 2y agoDown 2.4% doesn't seem like much. A bubble bursting would be 24% down.
- alexjplant 2y agoLast I checked Chrono24 grey-market Rolex values for steel models were down by about that much from their post-COVID. This was a year or two back, however... have they come back up?
- christoph 2y agoI warned anybody considering it, during the COVID era, that buying a watch as a long-term investment was a terrible idea. Good advice at any time, particularly during COVID though. Buy a watch because you love it and will wear it! It’s taken slightly longer than expected, but looks exactly how I imagined. A Rolex GMT BLNR (Batman) was hitting grey market prices in the UK near £20k at its peak, whereas they are down at around £11k. Still selling over retail (~9.5k), but a huge correction. I think much danger still lies ahead for the mid/high brands like Rolex/Omega/etc. Large 2nd hand watch dealers have very high stock levels. Watchfinder for instance currently has over 2.5k pre-owned Rolexes. Many of these will have been bought well over RRP and I think will still struggle to find many buyers at current prices. The pre owned retailers are going to find themselves in a real bind as prices reach parity with OEM pricing, as why would you pay more for a preowned item? Previously it was because you wanted the watch NOW! But I don’t think Rolex can continue to play games with the customer via their dealer network much longer in current market conditions, so I would expect OEM availability has to improve, further hitting those grey/pre-owned retailers. In fact, I think in the lead up and during COVID Rolex especially did a lot to damage their reputation with many customers and potential customers. Anybody who has played cat & mouse with a Rolex approved dealer will know exactly what I mean. Additionally, I think the social/economic landscape has changed greatly in the last two years since COVID, that this might just be the start. I personally know a lot of people that won’t wear luxury or luxury looking timepieces out, due to either fear (theft, numerous recent UK news stories of often violent daylight robbery) or embarrassment (many people feel a sense of guilt wearing £10k+ on their wrist when around people struggling to pay for basics). This sentiment doesn’t hurt them much if it’s short-term, but it massively reduces your buyer pool if it persists long term and your customers are primarily the middle class. As somebody else mentioned, the top tier luxury/niche brands like Patek don’t need to worry about such matters, their pool of buyers is so small and immensely wealthy, while their yearly output is even smaller than this, demand will always outstrip supply.
- m3kw9 2y agoMaybe people got tired of instagram show offs as it has diluted the coolness of having one
- tourmalinetaco 2y agoIf that was the case Apple products and luxury cars would have died off long ago.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoApple products and luxury cars provide a lot more utility than a watch that does nothing extra than the phone already in everyone’s pocket. If you use smartwatch features like listening to music, talking on the phone, or paying, the non smartwatch is actually negative utility.
- m3kw9 2y agoApple products are pricy but they are not just looks, they are a superior design from hardware to software and ecosystem
- vincentpants 2y agoLinking a previous hn discussion regarding the flourishing lcd casio watch mod scene. They stuff these cheap watches full of sensors, stm32 micro-controllers, screenmods & everything. It's great stuff. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28604696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28604696
- onetimeusename 2y agoThis article didn't mention it but luxury watch demand went up a lot, especially for Rolex, in 2020-2021. There was abnormal demand. Prices rose a lot on the grey/second hand market. Rolex designates the MSRP to dealers and grey market prices were actually substantially higher than the MSRP dealers are required to sell at. A lot of these watches could be dealers selling them under the table. That's presumably how new watches end up on the grey market. You can search around for it online where some articles mention it and a lot of blog posts and watch forums discuss prices back then. What's interesting is why that happened. It was probably a result of having more free cash available.
- dole 2y agoIMHO, I think bitcoin ramping up in value starting holiday season 2020, Available cash and COVID did a lot to bubble the market as well. I don’t think these were dealers selling them under the table either to pump prices. Last I’d heard, Rolex had a retail waiting list since before COVID started, may have changed recently. Edit: Rolex also supposedly has a marketing budget percentage higher than most brands as well, so there may well be truth to them pumping prices in that manner.
- kijin 2y agoThe crazy aftermarket prices caused a lot of people to consider a Rolex watch as an investment rather than the status symbol it was supposed to be. People who had no intention to wear a Rolex IRL flocked to dealerships for the sole purpose of reselling at a profit. Which further inflated the apparent demand, which again inflated aftermarket prices. It was a bubble, pure and simple. There was a lot of liquidity sloshing around in Covid times that people didn't know what to do with. At least a watch lasts longer than a tulip, so this bubble won't burst as dramatically.
- beaglesss 2y agoInflation was crazy and collectibles looked like one of the possible exits.
- seydor 2y ago
- dole 2y agoSurprised to hear that Rolex is still “resilient,” most reports show all luxury brands are taking a major hit but not surprising that Ulysse Nardin and Girard Perrigeaux are hurting, the entire mid-to-high end luxury watch market got saturated not only by major brands keeping up with demand but lots of smaller, high-end microbrands such as Rexhep Rexhepi and H. Moser & Cie. entered or got noticed when the watch market got hot and boosted the market and also ate share. One question I’m curious of is how many middle managers got furloughed versus labor?
- insane_dreamer 2y ago> After three straight years of record exports, wholesale watch exports have fallen by 2.4% That sounds more like a return to the mean rather than "demand disappear[ing]"
- ratg13 2y agoThe change is largely driven by trends in China https://www.baiguan.news/p/china-luxury-swiss-watch-consumption-downgrade https://www.baiguan.news/p/china-luxury-swiss-watch-consumpt...
- yalogin 2y agoI don’t think prices came down at all though. May be lowering reprises would increase demand but they don’t want to, or rather cannot to keep the brand premium. So it’s not news
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoWhen I was living in Switzerland, I went to Basel World once (Swiss rail had a nice deal). It was...weird. 50k CHF watches were considered cheap, lots of Arab and Chinese buyers, but I felt like it was a different world.
- tushar-r 2y agoIt is interesting - I follow a bunch of "finstagram" accounts. A couple of years ago, there used to be weekly "show your watch on Friday" posts with Rolexes and such. I realized after reading this article that I haven't seen such a post in a very long time. Most of these accounts post a lot less these days as well. Guess the reduction in bonuses post the Covid boom has had a massive effect on the folks who bought these watches!
- Rinzler89 2y agoLuxury watches and clothes are mostly bought by poor people to signal other poor people that they have more money, and to signal actually rich people that they're stupid and financially irresponsible. You never see your Zuckerbergs or Musks go around with flashy watches or clothes with Dolce & Gabana plastered over them. Those are mostly on average people who want to signal to their peers that they "made it".
- beaglesss 2y agoRich people use them to transfer bearer instruments of wealth across borders without having to inform the gestapo.
- darkfloo 2y agoNo? I’m sorry as much as I would like this to be true luxury watches are a sign of external wealth / conversation pieces for the wealthy (5/100M range I would guess) Might not be the case for the tech wealthy crowd as I know these circles less But for the traditional/family/business wealthy crowd watches are an easy icebreaker, especially if you mention you don’t care about the price and you like them for x other reasons
- elashri 2y agoAt 2.4% drop in sales and if we assume that for this year this didn't expect a decrease and increase and assume that the normal standard deviation in sales data of 1%. This would mean that we have a 2.4 sigma deviation. As a particle physicist I wouldn't even report this as evidence of a problem. I assumed no increase as a more modest goal after a couple of years of record sales and the current problems in world economy.
- samdung 2y agoThe thing about luxury watch makers is, the independent or family owned ones (Patek, Rolex) never seem to have a recession. LVMH and Kering own most of the other luxury brands and they mass produce these luxury watches. Patek for example cannot/will not produce more than a certain number of watches every year It's just supply and demand. If you are buying a luxury mechanical watch buy from an independent/family owned company rather than from LVMH or Kering.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoDo you have a specific watch you’d recommend?
- samdung 2y agoI recommend and "independent watchmaker + in-house movement". Need not be Swiss. If you are getting started with mechanical watches buy an Orient watch (https://orient-watch.com/ https://orient-watch.com/). You can get one for < $200. When you want to upgrade - Nomos (https://nomos-glashuette.com/en https://nomos-glashuette.com/en). $2500 + Above this is what you can afford but always look for "independent watchmaker + in-house movement". I also like the designs of Junghans (https://www.junghans.de/en/ https://www.junghans.de/en/) but they use a thrid party movement.
- xlii 2y agoI was given similar advice and, I am sorry to say, it has proven completely worthless. My friend is completely crazy about mechanical watches and recommended me getting ~4000€ upcoming watch coming from reputable but not well recognized Italian watchmaker. They came after few months. Till this day he loves it - and it’s one of his favorites. For myself it was kind of meh and I stopped wearing it after a year or two. Some years later I Was gifted TAG Heuer and I noticed one thing: that expensive watch main function is signaling. It wasn’t only a time device, but widely recognized jewelry and was a conversation piece. And a watch today is ultimately useless gadget. Clocks are everywhere and everyone has a pocket watch in a form of smartphone. Taking signaling away only makes such expensive gadget even more useless.
- Yodel0914 2y agoWatch prices went up a lot over the past few years. As one example, an Omega Seamaster 300M was ~$3300 retail in 2018; now it's ~$6600. I'm sure that has more than a little to do with it.
- bamboozled 2y agoThat watch isn't 2x better now either.
- Gigachad 2y agoIt was never about how much better it was. Watches peak in actual quality in the hundreds. After that it’s just wank.
- Yodel0914 2y agoThat's not exactly wrong, but is probably a bit harsh. There are massively diminishing returns in watches, but whether it's "wank" or not depends on what you value. If you're a movement nerd, having a coaxial escapement is pretty cool. Brands like San Martin are really showing just how much of the Swiss industry is hype, though. SM are selling watches for $200 that (movement aside) are as well made as $2k Swiss watches. And TBH, I'd rather have a Seiko NH35 than a Sellita SW200 anyway.
- piltdownman 2y agoSan Martin or any of the Atelier Chinoise brands simply do not have the QA/QC or finish/polish of $2k Swiss Watches in almost any case. They push out volume on Rolex steel-sports lookalikes with cheaply printed limited run dials, and are even then competing with 50% off lookalikes cutting corners on the BOM (Pagani Design anyone?). Likes of Sugess do it a little better, but comparing it to a $1-2k Christopher Ward or something is silly. Something a bit more hand assembled and finished like Orient Star is probably where you start seeing value against a swiss RRP in terms of East/West divide.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoI watched a lady at a club actually checking the wrists of men trying to hook up with her. So I guess it still has utility.
- darkhorn 2y agoMay be they were luxury few decades ago but now they are useless. They cannot keep track of your sleep, steps, pulse, blood pressure, oxygen level. They don't have maps, messages etc.