There's been a lot of talk about the most recent sales results for the Swiss watch makers- in short, another reduction in sales- you can see the breakdown by market below

Source: http://www.watchpro.com/british-luxury-watch-market-on-fire-as-imports-from-switzerland-surge-13-4/
Some big falls in markets driven by tourism (Hong Kong and France- for very different reasons), with UK sales surging off the back of the reduction in the pound post Brexit.

So what does all this mean? Well, a few thoughts:
- TAG Heuer are very well placed in the changing market, given their focus on reducing their costs 2 years ago and largely exiting the $8-12K market
- We're already seeing a brace of new steel models from brands such as Piaget, who are looking to get some models in below the USD10k mark- it's a tough market to be only selling precious metal
- Swatch Group has started discussions with Swiss regulators to allow them to sell more movements to third parties...yes, sell MORE movements . The reduction in demand for movements has hit their movement business, so now they are changing their tune on third-party sales
- We've seen a couple of watch companies being sold this year, including Frederique Constant and Glycine
- As I've mentioned in a previous post, I reckon the danger place for brands are those focused on the $8000-15000 price range.

Is this the beginning of a new crisis? Too early to say yet, but pleasingly from a TAG Heuer perspective, the brand seems to be well placed and with growing sales.

 

Speaking about the Swatch Group, The Watches TV just had an interesting profile about them.

 

At the recent Ibiza event JVB commented about the state of the Swiss Watch industry and provided very interesting figures for TAG Heuer.
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