Swiss watch exports post worst year since financial crisis.

[mule play]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-20/even-1-hurting-swiss-watch-exports-plunge-most-financial-crisis

 

An interesting article and the comments below are a bit funny too. Perhaps Swiss sales down mean replicas sales up....or not!

[Mike on a bike]

Great better deals on Gens next year as grey market sellers load up on stuff they could not move, think Joma.

PS I think everything down.

[crazyaboutwatches]

I'm thinking like Mike said, everything is probably down a bit this year. But, I'm doubting the Swiss will lose their portion of the game any time soon.

[panerai153]

The Swiss may be down, but they are certainly not out! They are the only producer of high end watches. The wealthy folks also may be in a bit of a rough patch, but remember the same thing happened with the dot com bubble in 1999-2000 and again with the global financial crisis in 2008-09. They recovered, and prospered. I feel like this is a temporary downturn as well.

The Swiss watch industry survived a huge crisis back in the 1970's when the Quartz watch craze swept the watch industry, the strong survived and emerged stronger. Another factor, the companies that make up the Swiss watch industry have in many cases been around a long,long time. They are in it for the long haul.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Mike on a bike]

Not doubt they will be fine but as I postulated maybe we can get some deals on the overstock due to lackluster sales..

[SSTEEL]

What TSG are doing end of this year is going to effect Independent Watchmakers, and Service Providers greatly with parts supplies stopping completely in most cases.  I feel the recent reports, and blog posts encouraging a boycott against buying Swiss watches from TSG will be felt, and hope the reconsider their actions.

[Nightwatch]

The article draws wrong conclusions and just leaves out the most obvious and immediate reason, which was the surge of the Swiss Franc from 15 January 2015 onwards. In 4 days the price in francs increased by 22,3%. While the Richemont Group tried to maintain the export prices to the USA steady, they immediately increased it for the whole of the Euro-zone, China and Japan.

A brand new grey market 116610ln that was going for eur 5.900,- by end of 2014 and eur 6.400,- beginning of 2015 is costing eur 7.200,- now (Oct./Nov. 2015). That´s a pretty neat and noticeable increase by +22% in 12 months. 

Edited November 22, 2015 by Nightwatch

[Mike on a bike]

Nightwatch on his game watching Forex. I usually do myself should not have missed that angle.

[panerai153]

What TSG are doing end of this year is going to effect Independent Watchmakers, and Service Providers greatly with parts supplies stopping completely in most cases.  I feel the recent reports, and blog posts encouraging a boycott against buying Swiss watches from TSG will be felt, and hope the reconsider their actions.

I agree with you 100%. It is going to affect the independents pretty drastically, and down the road, everyone who hasa watch with and ETA movement is going to feel the pain. Parts will dry up and as they dry up, look for the4 prices to jump like crazy.

I know for a fact that Bill Yao , the owner of MKII watches, has a great project going on right now, a homage to the Rolex 6542. Problem is he is limiting it to 300 pieces, simply because he was able to secure 300 ETA 2892-2 movements a couple of years back. If he were to try to build more, the increased price of the movements, if he could even get them in any quantity would likely increase the price of the watch by 30-40%.  

I also agree that when  the Swiss government stopped trying to tamp down the Swiss Franc, and it jumped like crazy, had a real affect on Swiss exports. That coupled with the Chinese government clamping down hard on extravagant purchases and ostentatious lifestyles has had a chilling affect on all luxury goods being sold in China.

AFA a boycott being affective, I seriously doubt that it will have much affect on their bottom line. Look at the list of companies owned  by the Swatch group. I doubt seriously if a buyer looking to buy a Breguet, Blancpain or any of their high end watches is going to give damn about their decision to choke off the supply of ETA movements and parts to independent watchmakers. Just a fact of life, the rich don't give a hoot about problems we "commoners" are having.  This is a business decision by Swatch solely to put pressure on all the brands that are in direct competition with their low and mid level  watch brands, like Tissot, Certina,  Mido, Hamilton, Calvin Klein, and all the others that use ETA movements. The less competition, the more they sell (at least that's what I think they believe). This problem is only going to be solved by other manufacturers stepping up and filling the void. They will have to be able to produce in quantity, as well as offer replacement movements for all of the popular ETA models to actually solve the problem. I truly believe that the Swatch group feels like they will make up in increased low to mid level  watch sales what they lose in movement and parts sales. 

Breguet, Harry Winston, Blancpain, Glashütte Original, Jaquet Droz, Léon Hatot, Omega, Longines, Rado, Union Glashütte, Tissot, Balmain, Certina, Mido, Hamilton, Calvin Klein watches + jewelry, Swatch, Flik Flak.

[dovo1695]

I'm just glad to see I'm not the only guy who reads zerohedge every day .  Some of the articles should come with a tinfoil hat warning, but on balance its the best source of financial/political news on the interwebs IMHO.