Pre-owned market dips in May with Rolex suffering the most
Market research platform WatchCharts’ Mark Xu runs through his key observations from May.
In May, the WatchCharts Overall Market Index lost -1.4%. Rolex (-2.2%) was the worst-performing brand of the month, with the GMT-Master (-2.4%), Daytona (-2.2%), and Yacht-Master (-2.0%) collections all losing more than two percent. Patek Philippe (-0.1%) and Audemars Piguet (-0.3%) declined slightly, ending their months-long rally. Cartier (-0.2%) and Omega (-0.6%), the two leaders of the mid-market segment, also lost some ground.
Among the 27 major brands we track, roughly half were up and half were down in May. This is a notable inversion of the growth trends we observed in previous months, where increasingly many brands were posting gains month-over-month. For many brands, this can possibly be understood as a correction to the market hype leading up to Watches & Wonders. While we focused on the discontinuation of Rolex Pepsi references in our May Watch Market Update, we share some fundamental analysis about Rolex as a whole in the section below.
In May, Rolex suffered its biggest month-over-month loss since November 2024, declining by -2.2%. It accounted for four of the five worst performing major collections, with the GMT-Master (-2.4%) and the Daytona (-2.2%) falling the most.
As we pointed out in last month’s update, we saw Rolex Pepsi prices fall immediately after months of discontinuation rumours were confirmed at Watches & Wonders. While Rolex overall continued to rally through April (+2.5%), May’s performance may suggest a broader overreaction. So far, this trend has also continued into June.
Among the watches listed in our Rolex index, we observed record-high levels of new listings in April and May, coupled with rising supply levels which represent a break from the longer term historical trend since 2022. This suggests a sell-off of inventory that was likely purchased speculatively, similar to what we saw during the watch market bubble in the early 2020s (albeit on a much smaller scale). Also similarly, price movements have tended to lag behind supply and demand dynamics – in early 2022, demand had already tanked by February but prices didn’t start to collapse until April.
In other Rolex news, the brand implemented a round of retail price increases on June 1st, further widening the gap between retail and secondary prices since last month. Retail prices for gold models increased by an average of +5.0%, while two-tone models increased by an average of +2.5%. Stainless steel, platinum, and titanium models were unaffected.
