Will people continue to buy traditional watches in the
digital age?
“These days, no one
requires a Swiss watch to tell the time – or a watch from any country. The time
displayed on our mobile phones and other digital devices will always be more
accurate than the time displayed on even the most skilfully engineered
mechanical watch, yet the industry has a visual presence in our lives like few
others. The storefronts of the world’s big-money boulevards glow with the
lustre of Rolex and Omega; newspapers and magazines appear to be kept in
business largely by watch adverts; airports would be empty shells without them.
The export value of the Swiss watch trade fell by 3.3% last year, due primarily
to a downfall in demand from the east Asia. But it is up 62.9% compared with
six years ago. In 2015 the world bought 28.1m Swiss watches valued at 21.5
billion Swiss francs.”