If you were asked what brands you think have the largest market share in Swiss watches, which brands would you name? Earlier this year, Morgan Stanley and the Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult published a report outlining the biggest players in the Swiss watch market. Here’s what they found.
The Swiss watch market is made up of 350 brands and retail sales totaled 51.8 billion Swiss francs in 2018, the report said. This is no surprise, but Rolex is far ahead, with more than twice the turnover of runner-up Omega replica and an implied retail value.
There are two crucial points to bring up. First, some of these brands are private companies that do not divulge official sales figures, so Morgan Stanley had to work out some figures using several sources. Second, we doubt that there was an error when compiling this special “Billionaires’ Club in 2018” table where the fake Longines and Cartier were possibly mislabeled – the average price for Longines watches and Cartier watches would make more sense if they were switched.
The Swatch Group has the largest slice of the pie with 19 watch brands under its umbrella. For context, fake Rolex has two brands, Richemont has 12 watch brands, and LVMH has three watch brands in their portfolio.
The Morgan Stanley report lists the following Swiss watch brands with the biggest retail market share: Rolex (21.2%), Omega (9.2%), Longines (6.3%), Patek Philippe (5.9%), and Cartier (4.8%).
So in conclusion, the five largest Swiss watch brands were Rolex, Omega, Longines, Patek Philippe, and Cartier. It is an interesting mix of watch brands with average price points that range from $1,600 to $54,000 and production outputs that vary from around 50,000 units to over a million units per year.
Yet, Rolex once again dominates by a huge margin, with potential retail sales of 11.55 billion in 2018 — a sign that global demand for Rolex fake watches seems insatiable, as confirmed by retailers who have been waiting for years to buy certain models of Rolex Daytona and Submariner.
Barring any unforeseen events, we fully expect the same name to take the top spot in the 2019 report.
