LVMH’s Jean-Claude Biver sees tougher 2016 for Swiss watch industry
“LVMH watch chief Jean-Claude Biver said 2016 is set to be a tougher year for the Swiss watch industry,” Andrew Roberts reports for Bloomberg. “The introduction of Apple Inc.’s smartwatch, combined with a surge in the Swiss franc and China’s slowing economy, have clouded the outlook for Swiss timepieces.”
“Exports fell in August, heading for the first annual decline in six years, and Swiss watchmaker executives are the most pessimistic in four years, according to a study published this month by Deloitte LLP,” Roberts reports. “Swiss watchmakers have struggled with a shrinking Chinese market since the country’s government started discouraging exuberant spending among officials in late 2012.”
“According to Biver though, the Chinese are still spending. ‘We see the consumer from China is traveling all over the world, in every country,’ he said, citing demand in places as far flung as Finland. ‘They’re buying outside China,'” Roberts reports. “Biver also said LVMH’s answer to the Apple Watch — the TAG Heuer smartwatch — will go on sale at 11 a.m. in New York on Nov. 9 and will look like a regular watch.”
We do not foresee anyone wanting to take off their Apple Watch in order to wear a “jewelry watch.” Apple Watch is not just a watch to be replaced with another regular watch. Maybe wearing two watches in come into vogue for special occasions? – MacDailyNews Take, April 16, 2015
Here’s what makers of Swiss or any other watches should do: Push the idea of wearing of two watches, one on each wrist or two on one wrist, into vogue. Because once people start using Apple Watch, they aren’t going to want to leave it at home. Ever. They won’t want to go to dinner parties without their Apple Watch. And that’s bad, bad news for watchmakers not named Apple. Watch and see. – MacDailyNews Take, April 16, 2015
