Boosted by a massive 58.3% surge in demand from the United Kingdom (UK) largely on account of stockpiling ahead of the fast-looming Brexit, the Swiss watch export industry registered a year-on-year increase of 3.4% year-on-year during February 2019,despite the impact of a base effect that remained very unfavourable, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH said in its monthly update.

The organisation reported that the UK accounted for 80% of the increase worldwide during the month. Total exports for February stood at CHF 1.8 billion francs.

Besides UK, the other major markets thatalso expanded were China, where demand bounced back strongly after two consecutive months of decline, going up by 15.1%; Japan, which registered an increase of 19.4%, the second month in a row of strong growth; and Singapore, which was up 18.6%, posting an unprecedented level of growth for February.

Hong Kong (-3.8%) and the United States (-6.6%) both declined, but this was largely on account of a particularly unfavourable base effect.

In terms of materials, precious metal watches were up a modest 4.3% in value, while growth was mainly boosted by bi-metal (gold-steel) watches which grew by 12.4%. Volumes suffered a further substantial fall (-8.6%), largely because of the Other materials and Other metals categories, but also steel timepieces.

The Federation also said that watches priced at less than CHF 200 (export price) recorded a significant decline of around -15%, seriously impacting overall volumes. The CHF 200-500 range remained stagnant, while the CHF 500 to CHF 3,000 segment fell for the fifth time in six months. Timepieces priced at over CHF 3,000 continued to show strong growth, a trend that has now been almost uninterrupted for nearly two years. 

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