For Swiss watches, America is back
The three-year luxury-watch slump in the United States is over. Swiss luxury-watch sales in the U.S., Switzerland’s second largest export market, jumped substantially in the first half of 2018 versus the same period in 2017. The retail data came from the NDP Group, the market research company which collects point-of-sale data from thousands of stores in the United States. “We’re reporting that U.S. sales for watches above $1,000 are up 13.5% in value year-to-date,” NPD’s analyst told Hodinkee. NPD’s first-half data is in line with Swiss industry half-year wholesale sales data that indicates a recovery in the U.S. The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry said exports to the United States jumped 9.1% to CHF 1.08 billion.