"As expected, the first ten days of January once again indicate positive growth in 2013"
- Swatch Group
The world's biggest watchmaker, Swatch Group posted record sales in 2012, due to the strong demand from Asia and tourists, who bought timepieces from Swatch brands like Omega, Longines and Tissot in Europe. Last year, sales rocketed 14% to 8.143 billion Swiss francs ($8.78 billion), even beating company's 8 billion franc target. The reason for such a strong increase is that the Swath Group took market share from rivals. According to the report, sales are expected to reach $47 billion in 2017. Each year Switzerland exports around 20 billion worth of watches, with around 50% from this amount being exported to the Asian countries.
"The strong group brands performed convincingly in all regions and price segments, notably outside greater China as well, and realized further conspicuous growth in market share," Swatch said in a statement.
"As expected, the first ten days of January once again indicate positive growth in 2013," Swatch said in a release on its website.
"We see an increase in value, especially in the high end, and a rather quite stable evolution in volume, even a slight decrease in the low end," said Jean-Daniel Pasche, president of the Swiss Watch Federation.
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