According to the 2015 data in report launched by FHS，Swiss Watchmaking industry has kept a high-exporting volume up to 10.6 billion Swiss franc even in a tough global economy while 0.4% increase compared to 2014, The stable growth of the whole industry basically matches with the prediction for 2015 but still shows a slowing-down trend with 3.2% increase in the first quarter while down to 2.2% in the second quarter. However, when we discuss details, we will find the differences happened based on different areas. European contributed excellent sales with an increase up to 9.8% while American ranks in second also with a +3.2%-high increase. Conversely, Asian devoted less than the above with -5.5% slow-down thanks to HK market. The optimistic situation in the first half year is mostly affected by the hard Swiss Franc among all the currencies. The most noteworthy point should be many suppliers experiencing a tough period even though it’s not that obvious, and the disaster also extends to assembled watches manufacturers. The observed trend will last till the second half year but still show continuous increase as long as the global economy stays hard.

Products

The amount of watches-export shares 94% of the total export volume up to 9.9 billion Swiss Franc while 0.3% decrease compared to 2014. Swiss has exported 13.5 million watches this year which has increased 0.44 million (+3.2%) compared to last year. The production quantity and output value (+1.6%) of mechanical watches and quartz watches both increased equally but the output value of the former ironically slowed down (-7.6%). In the first half year, although the output value of rare metal reduced (-1.8%), sales performance stayed stably regarding stainless-steel watches and bi-metal watches. Apart from rare metal, the production quantity of watches categorized by material shows stable growth resulted from other material (+3.7%) and other metallic watches (+16.7%). When classified by unit price, the data also indicates differences from different range. The export volume of watches with export price lower than 200 Swiss Franc increased prominently (+6.5%). As for the export volume of those pricing between 200-3000 Swiss Franc decreased (-3.2%) and production quantity also reduced by 3.2%. The products pricing more than 3000 CHF oppositely equal to the data in 2014.

Market

In the first half year of 2015, some of the mkts slow down their growth, which still caused deep influence to the avg of global market. Among the 15 main markets of selling Swiss watches, 3 of them in Asia area slow down sharply thanks to the NO.1 Swiss-watches digested area— HK (-19.5%). Ranging in No.5, Japan reduced by 6.9% while it definitely experienced a glorious period in 2014 and estimated to be up again recently. UAE, ranging in NO.10, also shows a decrease (-8.1%) but will come back with good news from now on. As the leader among 15 markets, USA didn’t express its advantages violently (+4.2%) but did show its stability as one of the best for it contributed the main revenue. China mainland increased by 5.3% mostly due to its export volume in April but caused over expectation. On the contrary, standing for European mkt, Italy (+14.2%), France (+8.3%), England (+28.5%), Spain (+8.0%) and even Germany (+1.4%) show increasing trend, so as the other mkt in Asia.