The direct-to-consumer trend among Swiss watch brands

In the release, both Richard Mille and Audemars Piguet declared their intention to quit the Geneva fair, thus exposing a growing phenomenon within the Swiss watch industry: that brands are pulling out of Baselworld can be considered a form of protest; the two luxury houses' departure from SIHH is part of a game-changing policy to move away from retail partners and other intermediaries to sell directly to consumers In an interview to WatchPro shortly after the 29th SIHH, Chief Executive François-Henry Bennahmias confirmed his intention to make Audemars Piguet the first major watch brand to completely pull out of multibrand stores, setting a timeframe of five years and possibly less The vast majority of the 400-some Swiss watch brands rely on a global network of multibrand retailers.

While a large proportion of watch brands have no other strategic option, for certain heavy-hitters it's a conscious decision It expects monobrand stores' share of the distribution channel mix to increase to 18% by 2028, while that of multibrand stores will shrink to 45% "We expect the move to direct-to-consumer to be highly beneficial to the main watch brands in the long term," notes the bank.

The first wave of major acquisitions came in 2017, when London-based The Watch Gallery was taken over by Swiss giant Bucherer, and Mayors Jewelers, a US company, was sold to the UK holding Aurum Now with 104 stores worldwide, including a megastore in Paris, the Swiss group is the number-one watch retailer in the world, ahead of Hengdeli China, Watches of Switzerland Group, The Hour Glass, Signet Jewelers or Wempe, all multinationals. . Source