Flat May halts the slide in Swiss watch exports
May’s Swiss watch export figures from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH), show small growth of +0.4%, year-on-year.
This doesn’t disguise the fact that the year-to-date has still seen negative growth of -3.1% for the period January–May.
The UK saw particularly encouraging growth of +25%, year-on-year, and the US also showed positive growth of 12%, albeit this is against a low base effect, caused by rushed exporting after the announcement of increased tariffs for Swiss imports by President Trump last April.
France’s ongoing impressive figures — this time up +61% year-on-year — can largely be explained by the increasing logistical centralisation in Europe, where brands use France as a consolidation point for all of their EU VAT/customs processes, and take advantage of the country’s extensive shipping networks and larger airports.
While bimetallic watches showed growth of +34%, those made from precious metals were down -7.2% and steel watches were also down -5.4%.
In terms of price segments, one of the biggest losers was the CHF 200-CHF 500 category, which saw a decline of -17.2% in sales value, while those in the higher price segment achieved growth of 3.7%.
