Horological Meandering

[graph position edited for small computer screens] I compiled this data from two business/financial databases, ThomsonOne and OneSource. Some of the figures are interesting. Comments anyone? NB: Figures are in nominal USD and number of employees are for t...  

Am I reading it right? If so, I'm surprised.

. . . as our moderator Scott can attest - a customer purchased a seven-figure necklace in the Chopard boutique at the same time he was buying a four-figure Mille Miglia. Cordially, Art

Chopard with Happy Diamonds and Patek with its 24. Neither VC, JLC or AP have anything similar. Breguet's recent growth (I have no numbers but revenue rose tenfold under Swatch ownership) is in significant part due to Reine de Naples. - SJX

I won't be surprised if Happy diamonds' annual volume is five or six figures. LUC is not hardly reflective of Chopard as a whole. - SJX

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...only has a 3% growth rate p.a. over these years - looks surprising to me given the progress they have made in the last 5 years

Anecdotal evidence from retailers and industry insiders would point to fairly slow growth at VC, which is confirmed by those figures. - SJX

Montblanc Montre (I presume is the watch company) sells 413 million worth of watches while Montblanc Simpolo (I presume is the pen company) only sells 527 million of pens? Pretty soon Montblanc will be more known for their watches than pens. Montblanc Mon... 

For the very large entities like cartier and montblanc, the various holding, operating and subsidiary companies are confusing so it's possibly montblanc montre is more than watches. As for hublot, lvmh paid 500 mil francs for it so that sales figure is un... 

First of all it would be interesting if we had the numbers or watchmakers of each company and number of watches produced From these figures it seems that Montblanc is selling a lot of watches and is trying to establish herself as one of the big players (b... 

I would have expected it to be higher, perhaps there are other corporate entities I could not find. As for GO I could not find figures on them. Legally they are Glashuetter Uhrenbetrieb GmbH. - SJX

USD18,000,000 divided by USD6000/watch (sounds about right as avg; surely it cannot be any lower?) is only 3000 watches per year. With each series having an avg of, say 1000 pieces, that would only support three models!

in the boutiques? about 10 boutiques, each sells 300/year, or a watch/day?

4 employees per boutique would leave 40 others employees to cover all areas; commercial & technical areas, right? It does not leave much space for ‘in-house’ operations!

Life is good for them. This message has been edited by mrsnak on 2009-05-13 19:41:31

It is interesting that Lange is now bigger than IWC. Taking Lange numbers, assuming the cost is half the revenue, 75mm divided by 500 (employees)=mere USD150 thou. per year. One thing I can guess is that it is not easy to make money by making high-end wat... 

by the size of Lange and the lack of size of IWC. Like I mentioned in another post though, these companies may have one or more affiliates which earn revenue as well so maybe IWC is a lot bigger. That being said, I doubt IWC's corporate structure will be ... 

That there basically two major types of watch customers: lover of luxury/fashion products ('normal' people) and the nerd with 20x loupe dangling on the neck . And there are only 1 watch companies for each market: Rolex for the normal, and Patek for the ne... 

They spend hours trawling databases and Bloomberg terminals for tidbits of watch information. - SJX

they are Geeks! MTF

some figures are in line with expectations (Rolex) but some are very surprising (IWC, Cartier - low, Chopard - high)... any other thoughts or is my perception of the relative rev standings of these companies skewed?

Richemont revenue from its jewellery houses, Cartier and VCA, is about EUR2.7 bn and majority of that is Cartier so its total revenues are definitely higher. - SJX This message has been edited by SJX on 2009-05-14 00:30:05

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the revenue for Claret, BnB, and Renaud Papi. As the top of the cream, wonder how they survive and how big is the market for high complication watches. Care to elaborate or toil in the internet? cen@jkt

BNB Concept SA 130 30.07 28.26 - - - Christophe Claret SA 70 20.76 1 9.52 - - - - SJX This message has been edited by SJX on 2009-05-14 09:31:27

Man, that was fast! And yet again the numbers confirm another theory of mine: the life at the top is not so rosy. With that many employees and so little revenue, I wonder how they can keep paying for future development. As a shareholder, I prefer to own T... 

Thanks for sharing. I am too lazy to work it out without a worksheet... Regards, iAn

for compiling the data...and free of charge as well! I, too, was surprised by Panerai's numbers. it is interesting to see that, for the most part, the revenues aren't really tracking with the global economy. Of course, this year's first quarter financials... 

It seems that Jaeger and VC have a very high employee to revenue ratio. Can anyone suggest why?

I found it fascinating that Journe has about half the staff but twice the revenues of Panerai. Expected Panerai's revenues to be much higher... perception versus reality can be really eye opening. Thanks SJX. Cheers, Dom

Dufour, Kari, V. Halter etc ? thanks for compiling such informative data

in the sea of watch market, a rounding error to Cartier sales in a month. If Claret and FPJ only make around $30mil in sales, these guys will make much much lower than that. Maybe even smaller than your dealer in Roxy . I think the barometer for these sma... 

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In a recent interview I read with Nick Hayek, he mentioned that Rolex, Omega & Cartier lead in terms of gross sales, & that Swatch came next. fnk

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