Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet, two of the Swiss watch industry’s top three independently-owned watchmakers, have closed their manufactures.
Rolex shut down its facilities for at least 1o days on March 17.
TAG Heuer and Hublot, both LVMH brands, closed their plants earlier this week.
Switzerland currently has 6,186 confirmed cases of Coronavirus and 58 people have died from the virus. It has 715 cases per million of the population, one of the highest concentrations in the world.
Patek Philippe’s closure began on March 18, and will continue until March 27. Distribution has also been shut down in some countries as regional teams have been sent home.
A statement by e-mail from Patek Philippe says: “Keeping everyone’s safety top of mind at all times will help us to navigate this challenging period and by doing this we may contribute to the stabilization of the situation, hoping that we will be able to safely revert to our activities as soon as possible.”
Audemars Piguet, which notched sales of almost CHF 1.2 billion in 2019, according to estimates by investment bank Morgan Stanley, also announced its decision to mothball its Swiss production facilities on March 18. They will remain closed until the end of March.
In this period of uncertainty, people’s safety remains at the heart of our priorities. This is why we have decided to close our Swiss production sites as well as some of our offices and boutiques in various countries until the end of March. pic.twitter.com/CXQauug7vO
— Audemars Piguet (@AudemarsPiguet) March 18, 2020
Well it wont make any difference to the buying public simply because when they AP and Rolex were at full production we couldn’t buy the watches anyway and now they’re is no production we wont be able to purchase a watch, so at the end of the day we cant get our hands on the product anyway, full production or no production it makes no difference if we cant buy them anyway.
Can you imagine going in to a pub for a pint only to be told by all the pubs in the town no sorry you cant have a pint we ain’t got no beer !!
Or go to all the restaurants in town only for the waiting staff to tell you when your ready to order sorry we ain’t got no food !! Well that’s the state of the global fine watch industry, it will eventually drive punters to spend their expendable cash on other luxury items rather than watches. I have 20 k to buy a watch that no Rolex dealer can anywhere in the globe the whole world can supply me at rrp, what a shocking state of affairs.
Switzerland has a serious problem, in which people are literally dying, and you’re upset over your inability to spend 20k on a watch? my heart bleeds for you William…not.
The inability to supply watches to the consumer has been going on for a lot longer than the current emergence situation that’s going on at the moment, so your underhanded comments completely miss the point, it is not only Switzerland that is suffering at this time. Please try and stay with the point and dont try to score cheap natianalistic oneupmansh.