What Is The End Of The Watch Industry After 2020

In the twinkling of an eye, it has entered August, and there are four months left in 2020. I wonder if you have such a feeling. This year's time has passed very fast.

Today, I would like to talk about some important events in the wristwatch circle in 2020, and how the wristwatch industry can "save itself" in the current economic downturn.

It seems that people can't escape the topic of "epidemic" today. As a watch industry which attaches great importance to "import", the major mainstream brands announced production suspension or production reduction in the early stage of the epidemic.

Rolex officially closed three watch factories from 5:00 p.m. Swiss time on March 17. Following Rolex's announcement of temporary "shutdown", Patek Philippe and Yubo also announced the "plant closure" notice one after another.

The general meaning of the e-mail sent by CEO Rolex to employees is: we have to stop production for a period of time because of the epidemic situation. The e-mail sent by CEO Rolex to employees roughly means: we will stop production for a period of time for the epidemic.

Naturally, the consequences of the shutdown of a watch factory are obvious. In February 2020, Swiss exports fell 9.2% to 1.6 billion Swiss francs. Take Rolex as an example. Although its output is not public, according to some conjectured results, the daily average output of Rolex is about 2000 pieces. If the epidemic situation in Switzerland can not be well controlled, the impact will be unimaginable. Hot items like "Water Ghost" and "ditongna" may be more difficult to buy for a long time.

Due to the epidemic situation, on February 27, 2020, W & W officially announced to cancel the watch exhibition originally scheduled for April 25-29, 2020.

The official exhibition of Basel will be held from May 28, 2020 to May 28, 2020.

It can be said that the cancellation of the two major watch exhibitions has a great impact on the watch brands. Many watch brands have racked their brains in order not to affect the release of new products. Tiger Heuer took the lead in using the "cloud release" way to show the public a new generation of luxury smart watches.

In the third generation of smart watch, the "connected" and "connected" watches are more unique in the third generation of "smart" watches.

After taghoua, pamajoni, baozilai and other brands have also successively launched online "cloud publishing", as if to tell the world that the epidemic situation is temporary. When familiar life returns, these exquisite watches are still needed to embellish the quality of the years.

In terms of watch exhibition, this year, Geneva watch exhibition officially changed its name to "watches & wonders Geneva", and jointly held "cloud watch exhibition" with tmall from April 25 to 29, 2020. Most of the wristwatch brands in the exhibition are owned by Richemont group, including Langer, jiangshidanton, IWC universal watch, Cartier, Jijia, penahai, Roger dupe, Earl and celebrities.

In addition to the joint launch of "cloud watch exhibition", W & W has also set up its own website to better promote online marketing, which is enough to show their intention.

On the other hand, the Basel watch show has been beset with difficulties this year. Despite its 100 year history and reputation, the number of participating brands is still declining. Due to the postponement of the Basel exhibition, which was originally scheduled to be held in April 2020, to January 2021, five brands, including Chanel, Rolex and Patek Philippe, announced their withdrawal. Instead, they will cooperate with the Swiss advanced watch foundation, a competitor of MCH group.

Over the past 10 years, about 1500 exhibitors have left Basel. Swiss watch giant Swatch Group, together with its 18 brands such as bopper and omega, withdrew in 2019, which has caused heavy damage to Basel exhibition. Top watch brands such as Rolex and Patek Philippe are the big gold owners of Basel, and their withdrawal has made MCH group unable to sit still.

MCH group immediately asked the team to invest professional knowledge and analyze the opinions of customers and other stakeholders, and finally decided to create a new platform, which led to the creation of "hour universe".

The new exhibition will be held in April 2021 in Geneva, Switzerland. "Hourunverse" will be planned as a "B2B2C" platform with consumers as the core. In the future, the information in the three sub industries of watches, jewelry and gems can be extended to more players. It can be seen that under the influence of the epidemic situation, the international watch and clock industry has completed an earth shaking reform.

After MCH group announced the launch of "hourunverse", watches & wonders, Geneva At that time, 11 exhibitions will be held in the exhibition center, such as geppell, piedmont, Earl purner, and the west coast.

I believe many of my cousins will have questions about why W & W is coming to Shanghai at this time? First of all, let's take a look at the latest statistics released by the Swiss Federation of watch and clock industries. In April, the export of Swiss watches and clocks fell by 81.3%, and continued to decline in May. The total export fell by 67.9% to 655.6 million Swiss francs.

In May alone, retail sales rose by 2.2% in May, but in contrast, some of them fell in May. It can be seen that China has withstood the attack of the new epidemic, and the economic situation has obviously improved in May. The watch industry saw this opportunity and decided to hold an exhibition in China. After all, at this stage, making money is the king's way.

Of course, Shanghai, an international metropolis full of fashion, is also very suitable for the tone of W & W, a world-class high-end watch exhibition.

For watch fans, this is definitely good news. After all, you can enjoy the new season's works of major watch brands without going abroad.

It is not difficult to see that the two major jewelry and watch exhibitions in Switzerland are quite consistent in the general direction of transformation. Although the transformation of Basel watch exhibition is more forced by helplessness, they have realized digitization of each other.

From the original limited number of people to participate in the advanced offline exhibition to the fully online open online exhibition, this cloud watch exhibition is considered to be an important step in the comprehensive digital transformation of high-end watches. Of course, digitization alone is not enough. Online e-commerce platform is still a relatively new channel for wristwatch brands. Therefore, the home page task of digital transformation lies in the penetration of the crowd. According to the characteristics of the existing target groups of the brand, the accurate operation and investment strategy can be formulated.

Although the domestic epidemic situation has improved, the global epidemic situation is relatively serious. In the current situation, traditional high-end watch brands can no longer blindly focus on the high net worth users of the rich class, after all, the customer flow of the store will be very limited.

To try more online operation, while targeting high net worth users, how to maximize the coverage of the new generation of young groups, which is also the future watch brand should think about.