Swiss watch industry sees India as next growth market

The Swiss watch industry is setting new records in the export sector © Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

The Swiss watch industry has high hopes for India as a market with great potential in the coming years. In addition, experts expect that sales in retail shops will continue to be more important than online trade.

The Swiss watch industry is setting new records in the export sector and is undergoing a transformation, according to a statement issued by the consulting firm Deloitte on Thursday. After watch exports reached a new record value of almost CHF25 billion ($27.8 billion) in 2022, the strong growth trend continued this year, despite inflation and the strong franc.

Switzerland’s ten most important export markets continued to grow in the first eight months of 2023, the report added, with a look at the regions. The US remained the most important single market for Swiss watches, with exports worth almost CHF2.7 billion, an increase of almost 10% compared to the previous year. China saw similar growth of 9.3% over the same period, but exports are still 7.5% below the 2021 level.

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In the first eight months of 2023, however, India also achieved above-average sales growth of 18%, according to Deloitte’s 2023 study on the Swiss watch industry. The auditing firm expects India to be among the ten most important Swiss export markets within a decade.

Meanwhile, respondents were less confident about the industry’s prospects for the coming 12 months. Only half of the respondents said they were positive about them, compared to 57% of respondents just a year ago. A quarter answered that they were negative. The reasons given were geopolitical uncertainty, inflation and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

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Despite the rise in e-commerce, a majority expect brick-and-mortar sales to continue to dominate in the future. Most brands and retailers (62%) agree that offline sales will continue to outweigh online sales in the next five years. Therefore, they also want to further expand stationary retail activities.

For the study, 75 industry executives were surveyed online between August and September and interviews were conducted with industry experts. In addition, 6,045 consumers were surveyed in China, Germany, France, the UK, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and the US, as well as in India this year.

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