Fashion for the Apple Watch and other electronic bracelets jeopardizes the business of producers of classical watches. Therefore leading Swiss watch companies have to react to changing tastes of consumers.
Switzerland’s watch exports in January 2015 fell by 3.3% year-on-year, noted by “Vedomosti”, citing data from the Federation of the Swiss watch industry. Already in 2020, sales of electronic portable devices will grow by almost an order of magnitude compared to 2014 – up to 650 million units.
The world’s largest Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group has challenged the market leader of electronic gadgets – Apple and other electronics manufacturers. So, in October 2015 Swatch together with China’s largest payment and clearing system China UnionPay and the Bank of Communication provided with a built-in clock technology purchases. Using NFC technology, the wearer Bellamy from Swatch January 1, 2016 may pay for your purchases in China by tapping the wrist. Later, the company announced a partnership with Visa that will allow you to make purchases with the help of Bellamy in the USA, Switzerland and Brazil.
And if the first competition from the Apple Watch, forced to apply new technologies only manufacturers cheap watches, recently they have become a threat to companies in the high price segment. In the end, Montblanc (part of Richmond) presented a model of e-straps, which “combines technology and high quality watchmaking”. TAG Heuer (part of LVMH), in turn, issued a series of Connected smart watches. The company offers to replace the device on a mechanical watch for an additional $1500 after the expiry of two-year warranty Connected. The Magnesium model Diagono, Bulgari released (a brand also owned by LVMH) in 2015, is equipped with a chip that can act as a key for digital repositories.
Apple communicates to the young audience that “the watch is the coolest accessory”, and thereby only doing a favor to the industry, says Citigroup analyst Thomas Chauvet. However, if the wrist of the consumer is already flaunts the Apple Watch, the space for ordinary hours does not remain, he warns. Disagree with him Julia Cazier from Credit Suisse: “When you buy an expensive watch, it is assumed that you can pass them on to future generations, so the user does not need technology that will become obsolete in the next three years”.
