Rolex

There is general consensus that Rolex deliberately withholds production on the Steel Daytona.

Here is some myth busting. The annual production today is about 850,000.

The split has always been in favour of laddie’s pieces the biggest seller is the ladies bi-metal Datejust. This may come as a shock for some. The reality is the bestselling men’s watch is also a bi-metal DJ!

In total there are 850,000 pieces per annum produced. I would estimate as the roughly half is men’s watches.  If we say 450,000?

Of these 50% probably are precious metal/bi-metal (that is being conservative in estimation)

So 225,000 steel watches.

This includes all sport and Oyster perpetual/Oyster Date/Datejust- which account a minimum I think 50%

This leaves 125,000 pieces

For YM, YM2, Milgauss, Daytona,Submariner,Submariner Date, Sea Dweller, DeepSea, Exp1 , Exp 2, GMT 2, Sky Dweller, Air King

13 models:

That’s about 10,000 pieces of each. So 10,000 Daytona white or black.

Rolex is 116 countries. I can hazard a guess, 4000 doors for Rolex? Probably more, but even if 4000- that’s about 2-3 pieces/per year

If every door has 10 orders, that’s a 4-5 years wait.

Could /should Rolex stop production of bi-metal DJ? Why wouldf they do that, when they are the bestselling most desired model they make. If there is a sudden shortage of Datejust, the customer can more easily buy another brand. These are the core customers for Rolex. There is no conspiracy, it’s just all about demand/supply and capacity.

As a business, they cannot afford to destroy their core business, so the Datejust/Day-date and precious sports will reign supreme.

Best

Imran