According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, the Apple Watch was a significant factor in the drop of Swiss watch exports during the month of August. This factor could be playing a crucial part in the industry’s first annual decline in six years. The report states that shipments fell 1.6% to 1.47 billion Swiss francs or $1.5 billion according to the folks over at Bloomberg. Exports of watches under 200 francs ($205) were down 13% while watches between 200 and 500 francs ($205 to $514) were hit significantly harder, sliding 24%.
When looking at the number of overall Swiss watch exports, they appear to have performed poorly for the first eight months of the year, declining 1.2%. Although the industry’s poor performance has also been attributed t to the rising franc and factors in China, including economic trouble and government campaign against high spending, the Apple Watch is believed to be drawing the attention of people who would otherwise consider a low-to-mid range conventional watch. As a result, Swiss brands that are operating in the same price range, such as Movado and Mondaine, are now increasingly selling or developing smartwatches. When it comes to the Swiss export market for watches over 3,000 francs ($3,081), Apple appears to have had little to no impact in this segment, where the Swiss export market rose 1.7% last month.
Apple just recently released watchOS 2 as well, which many are claiming is the operating system that the watch should have originally been shipped with. The software update addresses several early complaints such as the absence of native third-party apps while adding features such as Time Travel and Nightstand modes.
Source: Bloomberg
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