How the Coronavirus will Impact Swiss Watches

The Coronavirus, or COVID-19, has been sweeping through the world and making major impacts on so many industries and people. Unfortunately, the watch industry is not immune to these impacts and will obviously be impacted by it.

To date, there are 102,000 cases of COVID-19 that resulted in around 3,500 deaths. There are 35,000 active cases, of which 6,000 are series or critical. In Switzerland, there are 214 cases to date that resulted in 1 death.

Switzerland has taken some measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 by banning the gather of more than 1,000 people. This ban, however, mean’t that Baselworld 2020 had to be postponed. Not only does this affect the sales cycling of participating brands, it has even more repercussions.

Swiss Watch Export Results

Every month, the Swiss watch industry releases watch export numbers for the previous month. January results were strong, but February results may be largely impacted negatively because no one knows when the spread of the virus will end. Right now there is no vaccine for the virus, so the length of time that export numbers will be affect is unknown.

Supply Chains

There are many watch companies that are based in Asian and have supply chains throughout the world. With companies considering stunted hours or closing their factories until a cure is identified, supply chains will not be running at full capacity. Production numbers of these companies will be impacted, again for an unknown amount of time which will lead to negative sales results.

Markets

With companies under performing because of the uncertainty COVID-19 presents, global markets will be negatively affect. This effect can already been seen by the US Markets correction that took place early this month. Furthermore, with supply chains running at less than full capacity, the disposable income of workers will shrink and less people will be able to buy watches. If people do not buy watches, that has effects on export numbers because stores will be sitting on idle inventory and so the cycle continues.

But it should not be all doom and gloom. We can still enjoy the watches and the massive amount of watch content out there.

Enjoy!