Holiday Season Results, Swiss Watch Industry Export Statistics - December 2020

The Holiday season is often a time when watches are bought as gifts which obviously boosts sales for many swiss watch companies. After a stable month of November, watch exports declined by 2.5% year over year. For a very uncertain year, these results are not as bad as they could have been. The 12 month moving average moved slightly south of -20%.

Across the materials, we continued to see declines except for the “other metals” and “steel” watches that less units sold, but a higher amount in swiss francs exported. There was also a huge increase in exports in both units and value for watches between CHF500 and CHF 3000.

Across most markets, exports decreased between 2019 and 2020. The USA and Japan saw small declines which indicate a fairly recovered economy. There were many countries, including China at 45%, that saw large increases in exports between this year and last. This certainly has to do with their handling of the pandemic and rate of recovery, but continues to show the dominant force of this nation when it comes to watches.

January 2021 Predictions

This next year will bring some interesting results for the Swiss watch industry. While the pandemic had not hit the world in January yet, it will certainly have an impact on the results now. We expect a -3% growth rate for watch exports based on similar global economic situations as last month.