Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek says more than one million MoonSwatches had been sold by the end of November last year.
If that rate continued for a full year, it would mean 1.5 million made and sold in a year since the bioceramic Speedmaster clone was created in March 2022.
In an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Mr Hayek admitted he has been surprised by the demand for MoonSwatches, and said the company had not been able to ramp up supply to keep pace despite two facilities running around the clock producing them.
Manufacturing will pick up speed with a reconfiguration of Swatch’s facilities, a process that was scheduled to happen last summer, but delayed because of the overwhelming need to keep production as high as possible for MoonSwatch last year.
Although Swatch Group is a publicly-traded company, it does not break down production figures or sales by individual brands.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley, with help from Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult, publishes an annual roundup estimated these figures brand-by-brand, and put Swatch production at 3.2 million units in 2021.
Assuming Swatch sales increased across its portfolio off the back of the MoonSwatch hype, the company may well have shifted 5 million watches in 2022.
MoonSwatches are still on sale only at Swatch shops and not online.
The number of Swatch shops has increased from 120 to around 180, but customers are still complaining that they might have to travel hundreds of miles to a store, only to find that any stock deliveries are snapped up by flippers who continue to queue for any opportunity to buy the watches.
Mr Hayek says the strategy to lure customers to physical stores continues to make sense, particularly since ecommerce sales of watches across the portfolio have fallen since spiking during the first lock downs in 2020.
Sales of Omega’s full fat Speedmasters have also benefited from the publicity around the MoonSwatch.
Mr Hayek told NZZ that in-store sales of the actual moon watch, the Speedmaster Professional, had risen by more than 50% in Omega’s own stores since the MoonSwatch was unveiled.
Great marketing
A cheap Swatch
£220
Unfortunately, most of them are on eBay for triple the price, absolutely ridiculous situation, should at least be able to reserve online to pick up in store to stop wasted journeys.
The collaboration between Swatch and Omega, creating one of the ugliest watches in human history, will damage the Omega brand in the long run. ROLEX does not do collaborations. ROLEX gains in value.
There’s no more retail market. Everything with a slight interest is bought by scalpers and resellers, sold for 3x the price or more. And manufacturers don’t care because they got theirs already.
Would sell even more if you could just buy online
They aren’t x3 retail anymore.
The bubble has burst and most are on eBay for close to retail
Most look their value in my opinion in terms of materials and workmanship
Hopefully economic uncertainty will stop carpet baggers across the watch industry
While Rolex doesn’t collab, they have Tudor. Comes from sale factory for 1/2 the price. Rolex resale market is trending down already.
Why you can’t buy on line one per person I don’t know unbelievable I’ll give it a miss thanks
Why can’t you buy one on line one per person, unbelievable won’t be going no where near
After my GENEVE a MOONWATCH would be a nice step
Its absurd that a limited number of Swatch shops sell these watches , especially as people travel far and wide to get to the London stores and queue for an hour only to be informed gleefully by the staff that there are none available.
Of course HQ does not care as they are raking in the money.
I would say I am Omega fan owing a Speedmaster and one Aquaterra that I keep well storage and only goes with me on important days but thinking to have a Moonwatch clone for my daily use, make sense to me. In addition, making people to go physically to the store, make some of them come back with one or two watches whether or not the moon watch is available. I consider an astronomer fan too so owing a meteorite dial watch keep love for outer space watch versions. So Omega and Swatch learned well how that the exclusivity hype works and selling a cheaper Moonwatch version will works and will also plunge Original moonwatch sales. I had to pay $100 extra bucks for get my moonwatch swatch copy bought in NYC, but as I said, if we love watches we will keep looking to keep our collection growing, damn it why we love such expensive hobby, don´t you think so?