{"id":67897,"date":"2021-08-02T09:18:09","date_gmt":"2021-08-02T08:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/?p=67897"},"modified":"2021-08-02T09:19:45","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T08:19:45","slug":"covid-concerns-closures-and-lock-downs-relegate-uk-to-the-slow-lane-of-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/covid-concerns-closures-and-lock-downs-relegate-uk-to-the-slow-lane-of-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid concerns, closures and lock downs relegate UK to the slow lane of recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Swiss watch sales have sprung back to perform at the same level as before the pandemic, latest export figures compiled by the Federation of Swiss Watch Industry show.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exports worth almost CHF 2 billion were recorded for June, exceeding the same month in 2019 by 12.5%.<\/p>\n

For the first half of 2021, global exports worth CHF 10.6 billion are now less than one percent lower than in 2019 and rising fast.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, 2021 is on track to be a record year for the Swiss watch industry.<\/p>\n

However, the UK, where the country was in hard lock down for the first quarter of the year and a terrified public are only now beginning to emerge after being told to work from home and avoid almost all social contacts, the picture is more bleak.<\/p>\n

Despite the success of the UK’s world-leading vaccination programme, Swiss exports\u00a0 to the UK in June remained 5.4% below the same month in 2019.<\/p>\n

For the first six months of this year, the UK imported Swiss watches worth 15.4% less than the first half of 2019.<\/p>\n

In the top 10 markets in the world, only Hong Kong, which faces massive political challenges on top of its pandemic crisis, and France under-performed the UK.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Swiss watch exports June to July 2021 compared to 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The United States, described by Bucherer as a “rock star” market earlier this week<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, has bought Swiss watches worth CHF 275.5 million, comfortably making it the largest market in the world with 14% of all exports compared to 12% for China and 10% for Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

For the first half of 2021, Swiss watch exports to the United States are up 24% compared to pre-pandemic 2019 and could end this year as the largest market in the world for the first time since Hong Kong overtook the country in the late noughties.<\/p>\n

Mainland China was the largest market in the world last year.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Strong recovery for watch exports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Globally, average transaction values continue to soar as growth in sales of the most expensive watches accelerates.<\/p>\n

For watches priced at over CHF 3,000 exports are up 18.1% compared with June 2019, double the rate recorded for watches priced between CHF 500 and CHF 3,000.<\/p>\n

The export value of watches priced below CHF 500 francs fell by 13.9%, while the number of units decreased by 30.1%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2021 is on track to be a record year for the Swiss watch industry but the UK is yet to feel the benefit of our world-leading vaccination programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false},"categories":[7024,2,8637],"tags":[],"newspack_lstngs_evt":[],"newspack_lstngs_gen":[],"newspack_lstngs_mkt":[],"newspack_lstngs_plc":[],"acf":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"WATCHPRO","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67897"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_lstngs_evt","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_lstngs_evt?post=67897"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_lstngs_gen","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_lstngs_gen?post=67897"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_lstngs_mkt","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_lstngs_mkt?post=67897"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_lstngs_plc","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_lstngs_plc?post=67897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}