![]() The growth of successful campaigns featuring watches as a theme has grown from 2 in 2011 to over 200 in 2016, with roughly a doubling of players each year, and a campaign success rate that averages just under 50%. The watch category represents one of the most popular on a portal like Kickstarter. The global watch market is highly competitive, and will always be more so. Although these four categories are too unbalanced, in our opinion, towards the bottom, and therefore not very suitable to illustrate the current situation of the Swiss watch industry, they certainly provide valuable information to understand the trends of the watch industry. There are four segments used in its reports: up to 200 CHF, from 200 to 500 CHF, from 500 to 3,000 CHF, over 3,000 CHF. ![]() ![]() This is the solution adopted by the FH - Federation of the Swiss watch industry, which certainly represents an authoritative source. The industry does not have a standard definition of the segments to which the different timepieces belong, but one of the systems used is to divide watches into four clusters according to their cost to the public. It is taking place not only in its natural locations where watchmaking has always been important (such as Switzerland and the United States), but the stratup trend has spread to other nations, including Great Britain and Italy, and especially Asian countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and China, with the creation of high quality products - both mechanical and electronic - and refined design. ![]() What is more interesting is that we are witnessing a growth of the industry that is truly on a global scale. But we also can see a steady growth of the watch industry overall, accompanied by the birth of numerous microbrands thanks to crowdfunding initiatives on dedicated portals. We still have to acknowledge a few endemic situations, like the high polarization in the movement production sector, which has created an oligopoly situation. The COVID has hit the industry hard, but the latest industry figures show great dynamism, and suggest that we are optimistic about the future of watchmaking. It might also represent the first stepping stone in a horological path towards higher-end timepieces. Instead, it has bolstered the sales of watches and wrist devices to a large part of the population that was not involved in horology before. While the introduction of smartwatches has curbed the sales of low-end watches, it has not affected the market as a whole. The world watch industry statistics tell us that the field is nowhere near extinction. And in 2025, it will become twice as big – GDP-wise - that is, Ukraine. So, our question of “how big is the watch industry?” has a definite answer: as big as Luxembourg. To make a real-world comparison and understand the size of the horology industry, the 2020 stats of the world watch market is equivalent to the GDP of a small but prosperous European country like Luxembourg. The last luxury watch industry analysis by Mordor Intelligence tells us that the global watch market (composed of traditional and smartwatches) was valued at USD 61.85 billion in 2020 and will be registering a CAGR of 13% during the forecast period (2021-2025) to reach over 100 Billion USD. Moreover, it also shows some excellent signs of recovery for the following years, especially if we consider the effect of the rising smartwatch expansion. That is, it is a field in relatively good health, all things considered, and showing some excellent perspectives for the future.ĭespite the recent happenings, like the long tail of the economic crisis and the COVID shock, the market size of the watch industry has managed to withstand the blow reasonably well. We might be a bit partial in our position, but we feel that our analysis is backed by substantial figures that depict a different portrait of the business. Watches is a topic that strangely divides people: with the introduction of the modern smartwatches, the world has separated in two halves, traditional watch-wearers, and prophets of doom, who are preaching that the end of horology – a field that has withstood 500 years of evolution – is near.
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