Audemars Piguet sales were in touching distance of one billion Swiss francs in 2017, the company’s chief executive Francois-Henry Bennahmias said at SIHH last week.
The luxury watchmaker, which is still independently owned by descendants of the Jules-Louis Audemars and Edward-Auguste Piguet who created the business in 1875, has been making around 40,000 timepieces per year for several years, but average prices have been soaring.
“In 2011, we had sales of half a billion swiss francs from selling the same number of watches,” Mr Bennahmias recalled.
2017 saw sales increase by 12%, outperforming the whole of the Swiss watch industry, which saw exports rise by around 6%, according to the Federation of Swiss Watchmakers.
The company says it continue to produce around 40,000 watches per year through to 2019, but hopes to increase it “a bit” in 2020, Mr Bennahmias says.
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