The Swiss watch industry saw a great start to the year with strong results for January. Watch exports for the month totaled CHF 1.8 billion which is an amazing 9.4% increase year over year. Wrist watches led the way coming in significantly higher. The Coronavirus had minimal effects on the market for the month of January, but February may be a different story.

These export figures continued the 12 month moving average momentum from December moving the average to around 4%.

In total, units sold saw negative results at -4.8% but value of exports increased by 10.1%.

In previous months, watches below CHF3000 had seen a decline in both units sold and value. January saw a great recovery for watches between CHF 500-3000 that saw an increase of 8.4% in units sold and 10.5% increase in value of units. Watches under CHF 200 saw major declines once again with very weak numbers for units sold and value at -10.5% and -13% respectively.

The main markets that started the year off on a good foot were of course led by the Asian markets, namely Hong Kong, China, Japan and Singapore with the USA and United Kingdom adding to the list of top 6 markets. These top six markets represent approximately 50% of the total Swiss watch export market.

The coronavirus epidemic had very little influence over the export numbers for the month of January. With the impact of the disease spreading to other parts of Asian, export numbers have the possibility of coming in weaker for the month of February. With four of the six main markets in Asian accounting for 34% of Swiss watch exports, this could be crucial for the market.

Enjoy!