Swiss Watch Exports January-June 2014

The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry released the figures of Swiss watch exports in the first half of year 2014 and results are very favourable. Exports once again passed the 10 billion Swiss Francs mark, with a result of 10.532 billion, corresponding to a growth of 3.0% compared to the first half of 2013.

The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry released the figures of Swiss watch exports in the first half of year 2014 and results are very favourable. Exports once again passed the 10 billion Swiss Francs mark, with a result of 10.532 billion, corresponding to a growth of 3.0% compared to the first half of 2013. More specifically the growth was +4.6% for the first quarter and +1.6% for the second.

Growth was buoyed almost exclusively by Asia (+5.1%) with Europe stagnating from January to June and the American continent showing a small increase (+0.6%).

Mechanical watches keep recording increases both by value (+5.2%) and by volume (+7.4%), whereas quartz watches showed a negative result on both counts (-5.5% and -1.6% respectively).

Only watches costing less than 200 Swiss Francs (export price) registered a decline (-1.4% in volume terms). The 200-500 Swiss Francs segment recorded the strongest increases, particularly with a rise of 6.2% by volume. Timepieces between 500 and 3,000 Swiss Francs saw their value increase by 1.3%, while the corresponding figure for watches costing more than 3,000 Swiss Francs was 3.7%.

The table below shows the trend in the first half of 2014 in the fifteen main markets (total value in million Swiss Francs and % variation by comparison with the first half of 2013):

1	Hong Kong	2,007.5	+4.4%
2	USA	1,111.4	+2.5%
3	Japan	657.6	+25.5%
4	China	649.4	-4.2%
5	Italy	588.4	+2.0%
6	Germany	578.3	-4.9%
7	France	531.0	-5.3%
8	UAE	520.5	+8.8%
9	Singapore	515.8	-2.0%
10	United Kingdom	435.2	+0.3%
11	South Korea	292.9	+25.4%
12	Spain	215.5	+7.5%
13	Taiwan	213.3	-2.9%
14	Saudi Arabia	183.5	+0.4%
15	Russia	132.0	+5.3%

Japan and South Korea continue their record-breaking trend with the largest increases.

Forecasts for 2014 remain positive overall, even indicating a possible acceleration in the second half-year.