Chrono24 braces itself for Royal Pop gold rush

Chrono24’s tracking index of prices on the secondary market — the ChronoPulse Index — has recorded a surprising 0.4% dip month-on-month in April.

This is in contrast to WatchChart’s Overall Market Index, which showed a 2.1% increase for the same period. 

The ChronoPulse Index at least showed that April was up 2.1% on a year-on-year basis.

Ahead of the hugely hyped Royal Pop collaboration between Audemars Piguet and Swatch on May 16, AP is actually in negative territory (-1.4%) over six months on the index.

Arguably more surprisingly, the strongest performing brand over a six month period is TAG Heuer, which has shown +9.0% growth.

Arguably the biggest news in the pre-owned market all year has been the discontinuation of the iconic Rolex GMT-Master II ‘Pepsi,’ which was confirmed at Watches and Wonders. The ChonoPulse Index shows that this discontinuation led to a demand spike of around 500% versus the weekly average from last year on Chrono24.

“The Royal Pop is not just one of the most anticipated launches of the year, it is genuinely without precedent,” said Balazs Ferenczi, head of brand engagement at Chrono24. “I cannot remember a collaboration of this kind in the industry before, with a Holy Trinity brand entering the Swatch format for the first time. 

“The closest reference point we have is the original MoonSwatch in 2022,which lifted demand for the Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch on our marketplace by around 85% in the weeks after launch. The short-term effect was clearly visible, even if a lasting structural shift is always harder to measure. With the Royal Oak, we are in entirely new territory.”