The 2025 crisis has only hastened the rapid divergence in the Swiss watch industry that’s cleaving the sector. At one end are brands that include Cartier, Rolex, and Audemars Piguet that have managed to remain aspirational, creating products desired by enough watch consumers that sales continued to grow this year, due to both price increases and sustained demand. Putting the niche, low production, high-end watchmakers like F.P. Journe, Rexhep Rexhepi, and MB&F aside, the rest of the mainstream, higher volume brands are all fighting desperately to get on your wrist. Costs pressures and a more discretionary watch consumer are deeply challenging this end of the watch industry.
The barriers to entry to creating and producing a watch continue to be ripped down and have never been lower. If you have a watch design and some capital, you can start a brand. According to The Watch Pages, a website created by Geneva-based Susanne Samuelsson that attempts to track new watch releases, at least 935 new watch models debuted in 2025. And to be sure, the list is not exhaustive.
Even in the reality of a growing market for timepieces, that’s probably too many new watches, particularly at a time when some consumers are showing signs of what Vontobel Managing Director and head of Swiss Equity Research, Jean-Philippe Bertschy, calls “luxury fatigue.” In a recent report on Swiss watch exports, which as of November, were down 2.2% compared to 2024 to about CHF 23.5 billion and down 4.7% from 2023, Vontobel and Bertschy continue to see “widening disparities between top-tier Maisons—supported by heritage, pricing power, and diversified exposure—and the broader market, where overcapacity and weaker pricing discipline weigh on performance.”
