A report from Morgan Stanley said Rolex sales exceeded the US$10 billion mark for the first time. They have also been successful in strengthening market share.
According to a report published on Wednesday (28/2), the leading luxury watch manufacturer from Switzerland will produce 1.24 million watches in 2023, with total sales of 10.1 billion swiss francs or equivalent to Rp180 trillion. This figure increased by 11% compared to 2022.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley and Swiss company LuxeConsult said Rolex’s market share was at an “unprecedented”level.
The makers of the Daytona, Submariner and Datejust models recorded an increase in retail market share to more than 30%. The increase comes in line with the increasing demand from wealthy buyers of this luxury watch. Rolex is controlled by a charity founded by Hans Wilsdorf, one of the founders of the brand in 1908.
The more affordable Tudor Watch brand, which is owned by the same foundation as Rolex, is forecast by Morgan Stanley to record sales of around 545 million francs by 2023.
“No other luxury brand can claim such a dominant position in its respective sector,” analysts led by Edouard Aubin of Morgan Stanley and Oliver Müller of LuxeConsult wrote in the report.
For example, analysts said that Louis Vuitton had a market share of about 19% in the luxury handbag segment last year.
They added: “The Rolex brand remains the undisputed number one in the luxury watch industry. With sales exceeding the following five brands combined, namely Cartier, Omega, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, and Richard Mille.”
The report shows that Swiss luxury watch sales continue to be dominated by a handful of brands with annual sales of more than 1 billion francs. Vacheron Constantin, a historic brand controlled by Richemont, for the first time in 2023 managed to join the club of watch sellers with a figure of 1 billion francs.
On the other hand, the report states that the Swatch Group AG brand, namely Swatch, sold more than 2 million Moonwatch watches in 2023 and about 5.8 million watches overall at an average price of 141 francs. Thanks to the success of Moonwatch, the result of a collaboration with Omega, Swatch became the fastest growing watch brand for the second year in a row.
It should be noted that the figures released by Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult are approximate, as Swiss watch brands such as Rolex do not disclose their individual annual sales figures. A Rolex spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.