Luxury: Moderate drop in watch exports in October

Swiss watch exports continued to decline in October, although to a lesser extent than in the previous month. China and Hong Kong once again weighed heavily.

During the month under review, the sector shipped watches abroad with a total value of 2.3 billion francs, a decrease of 2.2% compared to October 2023, announced the Federation of Industry Swiss watchmaker (FH) in a press release on Tuesday. The decline is, however, more moderate than the 12.4% fall recorded in September.

Since January, the cumulative value has reached 21.5 billion, a result 2.6% lower than that reached a year earlier.

The number of pieces also fell by 170,000 units, a decline of 11.2%. The main outlets show contrasting developments, with strong increases observed in Japan (+20.4%) and the United States (+11.3%).

At the other extreme, China (-38.8%) and Hong Kong (-14.8%) represent a “major brake at the global level”, underlines the FH. Europe is holding steady (+0.2%), Spain (+16.9%) and the United Kingdom (+2.8%), offsetting the decline in Germany (-5%), the France (-4.5%) and Italy (-1.4%).

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