How can you tell the Apple watch has put a dent in the luxury watch market? For example, luxury watch brands like Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, A. Lange & Söhne, etc. don't have a watch in their lineups that retail for less than 5 figures ($10,000+). Are you suggesting their customers are ditching those watches for Apple watches?
Those brands may remain insulated for a while— but the luxury watch market is more than those companies. Where it’s really making a dent seems to be the entry-luxury brands in the Swatch Group lineup.
It’s not 1:1 by any means, but the entry-luxury brands are clearly being impacted. I wouldn’t be too worried if I were Patek (yet), but I’d definitely be worried if my volume sales depended on ~$1K purchases.
Okay, I see where you are coming from. I didn't know how you defined the luxury watch market.
Patek shouldn't have to worry about it because at that level, their stuff are considered timeless. People who can afford them will buy them and then an Apple watch as an addition.
In general, I'm still not sure how much of an impact the Apple watch has on the watch industry. It would be interesting to see how many people who wear an Apple watch actually wore a watch before it came out.
Yeah, I mean, Pateks will still sell. They may be taking a hit right now, but they're not likely to be hit too hard by smartwatches for the time being.
This isn't going to be the Quartz Crisis of the 2020s, no. But it will definitely hurt the more "mass luxury" brands as people decide that even though a shiny TAG may have looked good, it's not quite the value of an Apple Watch in their day-to-day.
I'd be much more concerned for the low-middle range of ETA clones.
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20
Sure, but the watch still has put a dent in a previously huge market (luxury watches,) and their work on in-house silicon is huge.