Swiss Watches Exports See the Biggest Monthly Decline in 4 Years

The market for Swiss watches is in a bit of a free fall.

In March, exports of Swiss timepieces saw their largest monthly decline since 2020, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Last month, they fell 16 percent by value compared with the year prior, to 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.2 billion), according to Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry data cited by the outlet.

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"The negative trend is even worse than we expected, and the decline in China is really worrying and probably indicates that inventories in the region were once again too high," Jean-Philippe Bertschy, an analyst at the Swiss firm Vontobel, told Bloomberg.

Bertschy was referring to the fact that exports to China fell a whopping 41.5 percent last month, a notable downturn in the second largest market for Swiss watches. That dip brought exports in the Asian country to an even lower level than that in March 2020, when the watch industry shut down due to pandemic restrictions, Bloomberg noted.

A similarly large decline was experienced in Hong Kong, where exports dropped 44 percent. The United States, which is the largest market for Swiss watches , saw a more modest decrease of 6.5 percent. In total, 1.1 million watches were shipped out of Switzerland in March, a 25 percent decline from the past year.

The overall dip was due to a number of factors, including geopolitical tensions and high interest rates around the world, Bloomberg notes. As the economy finds its footing, watch enthusiasts may be opting to cut back on their spending. That was reflected across the price spectrum, as exports declined in all categories: The largest drop—38 percent by value—was in watches that cost 500 to 3,000 francs ($548 to $3,290), while timepieces that cost more than 3,000 francs fell about 10 percent. Even watches that cost less than 200 francs ($219) saw their exports decline by 19 percent.

The poor news resulted in unfavorable results for Swiss watchmakers. Shares of Swatch Group, which owns brands like Omega and Longines, fell to their lowest point in the past year. And shares in Richemont, which oversees Cartier and Vacheron Constantin, dropped about 1 percent.

Perhaps the show-stopping timepieces displayed at this month's Watches and Wonders in Geneva will help the Swiss watch industry weather the current storm.