Peers Hardy has published the best financial results in its history after betting the farm on shifting away from quartz and into affordable fashion smartwatches and trackers.
In accounts published today at Companies House, the British watch business recorded sales of £27.1 million in 2021, up 38.6% on the prior year.
More impressive is the business’s operating profit, which came in at just under £2.5 million for the financial year ending December 31, its highest on record and beating the period when it was distributing Daniel Wellington watches at the peak of its powers.
It is a remarkable turnaround for Peers Hardy, which has seen turnover drop from £35 million in 2016, when its fashionable quartz watch business was riding high, to £20 million in 2020.
Its model was facing severe headwinds. Department stores, which were popular outlets for fashion watches, were in decline.
British retail sales for its sub-£500 quartz watch market had dropped from £570 million in 2015 to £250 million in 2020 as smartwatches from the likes of Apple and Samsung decimated the analogue sector.
Peers Hardy grappled for years for a star brand after losing Daniel Wellington and struggling to establish a smash hit with watches from the likes of Radley, Orla Kiely and Jigsaw.
That changed in 2020 when the company started working with its established manufacturing partners in Asia to make a multi-tiered range of connected watches and fitness trackers, and to push them out to a welcoming global network of distributors and retailers.
There are five fashion smartwatch brands in the Peers Hardy portfolio — Tikkers, Reflex Active, Amelia Austin, Radley and Harry Lime — with prices ranging from the equivalent of £30 for fitness bands to £130 for full-featured smartwatches.
Key accounts are reporting booming sales of its fashion smartwatches, according to Peers Hardy, include Argos, H. Samuel, F. Hinds, Watchshop, and several mail order businesses.
Paul Harry, the company’s marketing director, thinks independent jewellers, which have reduced their watch offerings over recent years, should pivot back into fashion smartwatches.
He is meeting some resistance from these independents, because they are wary of trying something new and unfamiliar.
“Quartz is in a terrible state, but leaping into something different is scary for some. We need to get the message across that these smartwatches can be sold just like fashion watches, but with a connected movement,” Mr Harry urges.
