Allez les Américaines! France and America lead Swiss watch export fightback

Swiss watch export data from December 2025 from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry shows things in a more positive light compared to recent months.

At the heart of the positivity are the States, which saw year-on-year growth of 19%, and France, which grew an incredible 51%.

Overall, Swiss watch exports were up 3.3% to CHF 2.1 billion, leaving the total for the year at CHF 25.6 billion, which was down 1.7% compared with 2024.

Most of this poor performance for the calendar year can be attributed to the chaos surrounding the speculation about, implementation of, and then dilution of US tariffs on Swiss exports, which shook confidence and ate into margins. Equally, the relaxing of the 39% rate down to 15%, which was announced in November, has been a key driver in the positive December figures.

The UK’s December figure was CHF 126 million, a growth rate of 9.3% year-on-year, meaning that it ended the year slightly up on 2024, but still down on 2023.

The Far East was the biggest disappointment of 2025, largely due to the ongoing underperformance of China, with the region down almost 7% in sales value, and 12% in terms of units shipped.