Top 20 Swiss Watch Brands Revealed by Morgan Stanley
Any guesses which watchmaker takes the crown?
An annual report into the state of the Swiss watch industry has drawn up a Top 20 list of the most powerful brands in the industry.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley and watch industry expert LuxeConsult, have published their fourth annual report on the industry and the performance of the individual brands, based on available figures and accounts.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rolex took the top spot, for the fourth year in a row, with nearly 25% market share and annual sales of CHF 4.42bn ($4.7bn USD) accumulated through the sale of some 810,000 watches.
One less obvious result was the strength of Rolex’s stablemate Tudor, which relaunched globally in 2012 and crept into the Top 20 six years later, now sitting in 14th position thanks to the sale of nearly quarter of a million watches. The pair’s estimated combined sales of $5.1bn USD puts them within touching distance of the combined $5.16bn USD annual sales of Swatch Group’s thirteen brands and surpassing the $4.28bn USD brought in by Richemont’s eleven brands.
Second place goes to Swatch Group’s Omega, which the report estimates sold 500,000 watches, generating revenues of CHF $1.865bn USD while third is occupied by Richemont’s cashcow, Cartier, which sold 430,00 watches making $1.73bn USD.
While this top three pecking order has remained constant over the past four years, Longines was overtaken in 2020 by Patek Philippe, which is estimated to have generated sales of $1.23bn USD from some 53,000 watches. Longines generated $1.215bn USD through the sale of 1.5m watches.
Audemars Piguet held onto its 6th place ranking, while Tissot (which is thought to sell 2.4m watches each year) was leapfrogged by the juggernaut that is Richard Mille. TAG Heuer and IWC round out the Top 10 by retaining their 9th and 10th spots respectively.
Positions 11-20 are occupied by Breitling, Hublot, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Tudor, Vacheron Constantin, Panerai, Bulgari, Breguet, Blancpain and Rado, respectively.
Brands in the ascendancy include Tudor and Breitling, which boasts renewed vigor under the leadership of George Kerns, whilst Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, Panerai, Breguet and Rado all appear to have lost ground.
In other watch news, Phillips has uncovered a ‘lost’ Patek Philippe that rewrites the history books.
