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Swiss Watch Industry Analysis

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Swiss watch industry is a highly export-driven industry and this makes it very sensitive to international competition. There are two major sources of threat to Swiss watches: high-tech smartwatches made by apple and google and Chinese-produced low-cost watches(both fake production and other Asian watches such as Japanese brands). Swiss watches are positioned in luxury-watch industry so it can be claimed that this competition will not make a big change in the exports of Swiss brands. But even Swiss watchmaking executives do not agree with this claim. In a trade show in Geneva, an executive from HYT said: “We expect 2016 to be a very, very difficult year” after a decline of 11 consecutive months in 2015-2016*.
The history of Swiss watches shows …show more content…
European market is a historically prominent place for every Swiss brand to compete in because they have the luxury consciousness. In this sense it can be claimed that the force that drives the design owes some of its share to the high-income European customers who have delicate taste. They also drive the demands of the emerging markets. New rich people from the emerging markets want to be as delicate in taste and elite as a European rich high income person. This fact may be supported with the recent data showing Italy’s insistence on swiss watches. The only positive change occurred in swiss watch returns has occurred in Italy, a country known for its singular fashion and luxury awareness. Given the fact that Luxury watch industry is open to general macroeconomic crises such as the european crisis, this fact is quite important for swiss …show more content…
It is well-known that a casio watch which shows the time pretty accurately costs for the customer only 10$ whereas the price is incredibly higher a swiss watch. They serve the same purpose but there is a great difference between owning a “swiss” watch and a japanese watch. The brand reputation and ownership emotion is very important in this case. It is because of this reputation of the “swiss made” that they can’t outsource their production processes. They wouldn’t prefer to write “made in china/japan” at the back of their watches because the whole thing is about the reputation and the history behind those watches. Below are the most important swiss watch

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