Luxury watch market ticks up ahead of time, thanks to Chinese orders
A big jump in orders from China has put the global market for luxury timepieces back on its feet sooner than expected, after having languished for more than two years.
PHOTO: REUTERS
A BIG jump in orders from China has put the global market for luxury timepieces back on its feet sooner than expected, after having languished for more than two years.
This should be good news for the Singapore market, which is among the world’s 10 biggest, and one of four among the 10 to have posted growth so far this year.
Switzerland is virtually the sole supplier of such timepieces, and the Chinese snap up the bulk of them; not only do the Chinese import the watches, they buy them on their travels to major watch markets such as Singapore.
Sales of Swiss watches went into free fall during the 2008 global recession, but this didn’t last long. Strong orders from China and Hong Kong in the following year arrested the dive and pulled Swiss exports up 22.7 per cent year on year A slump in the market in the last two years was due in large part to China’s crackdown on corruption, which shrank Chinese orders.
But it looks like China has come to the rescue of the Swiss once more, as Richemont Group chief financial officer Gary Saage told financial analysts in mid-May: “Mainland China has been really quite strong and has been for nine months.” Richemont is one of the two biggest Swiss producers of luxury timepieces; the other is the Swatch Group. Mr Saage’s remark c...
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