In 1924, the same year that Britain’s first Labour government took office and the Empire Exhibition opened, Watches of Switzerland began a mail order business, selling imported watches from its office in the City of London.
Today, as it celebrates its centennial, the Watches of Switzerland Group has more than 200 showrooms in Britain and the United States, employs more than 2,900 people, sells more than 80 watch brands and reported revenues of 1.5 billion pounds (about $2 billion) in its latest fiscal year, which closed in April.
“Today, we’re really proud of our business — we’ve hit almost $2 billion globally, and it is 50/50 between the U.K. and the U.S.,” Brian Duffy, the company’s chief executive, said in a recent interview. ”And we’ve only been in the U.S. since 2018, and here’s still plenty of room for growth.” (On Oct. 4, the company announced it had bought Hodinkee, the watch website based in New York.)
To commemorate the occasion, the company has been releasing a series of limited-edition timepieces from brands such as Cartier, Bulgari, TAG Heuer and Zenith, mostly fitted with straps in Watches of Switzerland’s signature blue color. And on the back of the golden case of a 100-piece Tank Louis Cartier, under the Cartier and Watches of Switzerland logos, the inscription 1924-2024 marks the anniversary.
Along with the special editions, the company held an event called “Time to Inspire” in August at the London headquarters of the Prince’s Trust, a charity that King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, established in 1976 to help vulnerable young people. The event included workshops, networking and a series of talks by personalities such as the actor John Hannah (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) and the former German soccer player Thomas Hitzlsperger.
The company has been collaborating with the trust since 2013, most recently through its Watches of Switzerland Group Foundation, established in 2021. “What I love about the trust is that three out of four young people who come to them have a positive outcome — whether that’s getting a job, returning to education or starting a business,” Mr. Duffy said.
But he acknowledged that the company’s charitable involvement has a business dimension, too. “In today’s world, it’s clear that you have to look after the interests of your shareholders, but business today is more than just that,” he said. “You’ve got to play an active role in your community, and you need a set of values that everyone can connect with and feel proud of.”
When it comes to business, however, the company has been facing challenges this anniversary year. While total exports of Swiss watches for the first eight months of 2024 reached 17.1 billion Swiss francs (about $20 billion), according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, the outlook for the rest of the year suggests a global softening in demand, reflected in a 1.4 percent decline year-over-year through August.
Taxation changes also have had an effect: As of January 2021, Britain stopped reimbursing tourists for the value-added tax, essentially a sales tax, that they had paid on goods they were taking out of the country — a popular program that many said had prompted tourists to buy luxury goods while on vacation.
And the British government has announced that people living there, but with primary residences abroad (commonly referred to as “non-doms”), will no longer be able to avoid paying tax on income and capital gains earnings overseas as of 2025. Analysts have said that an exodus of wealthy residents has already started.
“The VAT situation has affected our business,” Mr. Duffy said. “We lost about 20 percent of business with tourists overnight. That being said, it also shows the market is solid because increased domestic sales offset this loss.” As for the projected departure of some of Britain’s wealthiest residents, he said it was difficult to predict its effects.
Much of the company’s recent growth has been in the United States, which now accounts for half of its total sales.
“When we measure the watch market on a per-capita basis, the market in the U.S. is less than half that of the U.K.,” Mr. Duffy said, “and there is no explanation for this other than retail. The retail market in the U.S. has been lagging behind and needs development.”
He highlighted the company’s retail concept of large stores with welcoming environments, serving customers drinks and sweets as part of the shopping experience. “It seems like common sense, but no one else was doing it,” he said.
But Oliver R. Müller, the founder of the watch consultancy LuxeConsult in Aubonne, Switzerland, said that multibrand retailers like Watches of Switzerland were being affected by a shift in their relationship with brands. “Retailers which were once considered the ‘kings’ have now become more like ‘servants,’” he said, noting that brands have been moving away from multibrand retailers to focus on their own stores.
He also said the company’s greatest asset, its Rolex retail business — which Mr. Müller estimated accounts for more than half of its revenue — was now under threat because Rolex acquired the watch retailer Bucherer last year.
But Mr. Duffy dismissed the concerns. “Rolex have assured us, and the market as a whole, that they will not be operationally involved and that all matters on product allocation, project approval and all the rest will remain as it was and our business will be unaffected,” he said. “This has been our experience since the announcement was made and we believe that the market concern is unwarranted.”
He also noted that the company also operated stores for several brands, such as the Audemars Piguet House in Manchester, England, scheduled to open in the first half of 2025. It will be one of Audemars Piguet’s series of private clublike spaces, introduced in 2017 and now operating in major cities including London and Tokyo.
And while Mr. Duffy acknowledged that “40 percent of our business comes from people who only buy one or two watches,” he added that “one-third of our business is from people who buy more than 10 watches from us in a year.”
The market seems to agree with Mr. Duffy’s strategy, as the company’s share price on the London Stock Exchange has gradually regained ground after falling upon the Rolex-Bucherer tie-up. In May, investors particularly seemed to welcome the company’s $130 million acquisition of the rights to distribute the Italian jewelry brand Roberto Coin in North and Central America.
“It’s a positive move since jewelry is a more resilient category than watches,” Milton Pedraza, the chief executive of the consulting agency Luxury Institute in New York, wrote in an email. And, he added, “Roberto Coin is a solid and unique brand with room to grow.”
Mr. Duffy said he was convinced of the deal’s potential, stressing that the company had been involved with jewelry since the 18th century (through its ownership of the British jewelers Mappin & Webb and Goldsmiths, both founded in the 1700s).
“Now that we’ve been very successful with watches, our presence in the U.S. market, which is the biggest jewelry market, allows us to expand into jewelry even further,” he said. “Roberto Coin has a rich heritage, and we’ve been retailing the brand for the past five or six years, we know the family well and believe there’s a great opportunity here.”
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