Rolex’s power and influence reach terrifying levels, Watchfinder survey finds

[Chewbacca]

I think this is almost the same % as watch exports. Rolex owns 55% of the luxury Swiss market IIRC.

[yoniman]

Thanks for sharing.

It's all about health, happiness & family. The rest are just necessary inconveniences we have to deal with.

[Mystro]

If these other “non Rolex” brands can’t sell watches in this market, then they are doomed when the excess of disposable money comes back to reality post pandemic. When Rolex was in the cases years back, a customer could genuinely compare shop their watch brands. Now is the time Omega has a real chance to sell a lot of watches because it’s not like their customer is walking over to the Rolex case and buying a watch on the spot. The normal affluent customer looking for a watch might have a better time finding Bigfoot in a Rolex dealership than a Rolex watch. Rolex is living rent free in customers minds without even any products they can buy.

[vh2k]

Originally Posted by chewbacca

i think this is almost the same % as watch exports. Rolex owns 55% of the luxury swiss market iirc.

25%

[Lesnerelli23]

I agree with an earlier post. Non WIS would probably say Rolex and Seiko for mechanical (Casio for digital?), MAYBE Tag. But, overwhelmingly Apple Watch biased I’d bet!

I have maybe one friend that has heard of Omega, Tissot, or Movado…

[Francist]

There’s no substitute for a Daytona.
People who says otherwise are lying to themselves.

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by asiparks

Tag would probably make it in there too, along with Anne Klein, but I'd imagine you're right about Rolex hitting higher than 55%, if you did a Family Fortunes' style "We asked 100 people on the street to name a luxury watch..." survey.

As to Rolex crippling other luxury brands- in name recognition perhaps, but they're not increasing production in the short term, and they're generally unavailable to buy for normal people at retail. The secondary market will simply price a lot of people out, so unless people are withholding their luxury watch spending altogether, the other brands will keep selling as they are now.

Spot on

[asiparks]

Originally Posted by Francist

There’s no substitute for a Daytona.
People who says otherwise are lying to themselves.

That's super....

[csaltphoto]

I find it curious that Omega is kinda flailing. They could easily take a page from Rolexes playbook and consolidate their design strategy, stop flooding the market with a hundred different iterations of every watch and so on. They make an arguably equal or even superior product in the engineering sense. But you walk into an Omega store and you are flooded with different designs; the SRP is similar to Rolex but the sheer volume suggest a far commoner product. They either have to tighten up the product line or reduce prices to compete.

If Omega had Tudor pricing they might be competitive. I know they put a lot of engineering into their movements and design though so it might not be possible for them.

[Marcjvr]

Originally Posted by Francist

There’s no substitute for a Daytona.
People who says otherwise are lying to themselves.

Hype is real

[RyanJ]

Originally Posted by Marcjvr

Hype is real

Yep. Exactly. Color me shocked that people want one of the hardest watches to get. How many wanted the SS Daytona which actually has an affordable MSRP when compared to Patek? Nope went straight to Platinum. I wonder why?

People want what they cannot have. I would have loved to ask a follow up to every person that stated they wanted a Daytona.. I bet the majority could not even tell you anything about it beyond what is seen on the surface.

Lets stop pretending that most people really want Rolex watches because they love the history, how its made, and its great movements...People obviously do not want Omega but shocker... The Silver Snoopy sells for way over retail. Gee you mean limited supply at MSRP and some hype can mean high secondary market prices? No... It can't be. Most could probably care less about the price. They just see a flipping opportunity.

If these watches were readily available (like most Omega), most would sit on shelves just like Omega and every other watch brand.

[Fleetlord]

Originally Posted by csaltphoto

I find it curious that Omega is kinda flailing. They could easily take a page from Rolexes playbook and consolidate their design strategy, stop flooding the market with a hundred different iterations of every watch and so on. They make an arguably equal or even superior product in the engineering sense. But you walk into an Omega store and you are flooded with different designs; the SRP is similar to Rolex but the sheer volume suggest a far commoner product. They either have to tighten up the product line or reduce prices to compete.

If Omega had Tudor pricing they might be competitive. I know they put a lot of engineering into their movements and design though so it might not be possible for them.

Swatch is publicly traded, so they have to show their shareholders that they have lots of sales. For them, sales are recorded when they sell them to their dealers and allocated to their boutiques (maybe, not 100% on that accounting).

That means LOTS of production to have sales to dealers.

The thing is that too much production and subsequent sales to dealers kill the desirability of the product and the end user has no interest in them, so the dealer has to sell them at a discount to customers or dump them on the grey market at even bigger discounts just to get the dead stock off the books...

The desires of the market are making it VERY CLEAR that overproduction = brand erosion and irrelevance, but it's too late for Omega (and others) to make changes. Some of these brands won't make it unfortunately.

[ROLEXster]

Brand recognition is very powerful.
IMO … Rolex, Apple, Tesla are leaders in their own space for now.
Everyone else is fighting for 2nd place.

[ThatOtherGuy7]

In related news, 55% of all statistics are made up.

[JC316]

Originally Posted by RyanJ

Yep. Exactly. Color me shocked that people want one of the hardest watches to get. How many wanted the SS Daytona which actually has an affordable MSRP when compared to Patek? Nope went straight to Platinum. I wonder why?

People want what they cannot have. I would have loved to ask a follow up to every person that stated they wanted a Daytona.. I bet the majority could not even tell you anything about it beyond what is seen on the surface.

Lets stop pretending that most people really want Rolex watches because they love the history, how its made, and its great movements...People obviously do not want Omega but shocker... The Silver Snoopy sells for way over retail. Gee you mean limited supply at MSRP and some hype can mean high secondary market prices? No... It can't be. Most could probably care less about the price. They just see a flipping opportunity.

If these watches were readily available (like most Omega), most would sit on shelves just like Omega and every other watch brand.

Indeed! LOL! Most people I talk to about Rolex lately just want to make a quick buck. Current owners that purchased before the market went wild want to hold because they want to see how much higher the price will go. Couple of my friends have already said that they will sell their precious SS Subs when the secondary market decides its worth $50,000.

On another note: Omega said that they would put me on a list for a Snoopy, but only if I spend $50k there.....

Its indeed a great time to be alive!

[Rori]

No surprise Rolex is the list recognized luxury watch brand in the world and to me no matter how hard others will try, they will never succeed to make people change and name a different brand as the Best or as a dream-watch. What has been done is done.


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[rambo99]

poor panerai, it was never mentioned in the survey result!

[Cauhauna]

Originally Posted by bob sims

Omega-you SUCK

I agree. Their watches are cool
The endless supply makes them undesirable to me

[PBJ1925]

Would've been interesting if they stratified the poll into different age groups to see if there was a notable delta on some of the brands after Rolex.

[SeeDweller]

All very interesting.
As much as we don’t like to talk about it, Rolex is still a decent way to park funds, get to enjoy it, and know that at the end of the day, … you can get your money back

Good read, for sure!


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[MP777]

Very cool, thanks for the post

[1William]

Interesting. I will take it for what it is.

[7enderbender]

There are so many things wrong with that article…
Anyway - more Omegas and IWC for me I guess.

[watchwatcher]

Originally Posted by Timetracker

‘Terrifying’ levels?……….a tad dramatic when discussing anything to do with a watch, don’t you think?��*♂️

Indeed.

[Francist]

Originally Posted by Cauhauna

I agree. Their watches are cool
The endless supply makes them undesirable to me

I like their watches too, especially the Seamasters line.
That is until I went to Japan and saw they were discounted 40-60% in Bic Camera. There was no difference between those packed Omegas & a can of sardine. They had Rolex too but was on sale for above msrp. This was in 2017.

The issue of over-supply will kill any luxury brand.

[Kelvin Knight]

Their CEO comes off as a Grade-A muppet…

I know a guy who’s been wearing his Platinum Daytona as a beater since the day his AD practically begged him to take one (of TWO in their case!) home with him along with his WG Submariner back in 2017. The discount offered would induce clinical depression these days.

[Wcdhtwn]

Strange poll results. If the question was "what do you want to have on your wrist", Omega and Breitling ranking higher than VC, IWC, JLC is not what I'd expect at all. It seems like they got answers more aligned with "what watch brand do you recognize". Maybe this is the wrong audience to ask, but would anyone here choose to own their favorite Breitling over their favorite VC? Money aside of course.

[padi56]

Rolex’s power and influence reach terrifying levels, now this sounds like todays media talk especially now in the UK with there constant scaremongering for shortages of this or that.

[bob sims]

Originally Posted by Lesnerelli23

I agree with an earlier post. Non WIS would probably say Rolex and Seiko for mechanical (Casio for digital?), MAYBE Tag. But, overwhelmingly Apple Watch biased I’d bet!

I have maybe one friend that has heard of Omega, Tissot, or Movado…

Yes Casio and Apple watch would sadly lead the list.

[random_name]

Originally Posted by Tavli3

My thinking is non WIS are more inclined to other brands. Tag, Hublot etc


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Originally Posted by ROLEXster

Brand recognition is very powerful.
IMO … Rolex, Apple, Tesla are leaders in their own space for now.
Everyone else is fighting for 2nd place.

Tesla.

Lol.

Try Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari.