The Geneva watch fair, the watchmaking industry’s biggest annual\u00a0showcase, opened Tuesday with the impact of the Middle East war throwing up challenges for the luxury goods sector.<\/p>\n
The Watches and Wonders salon, which runs until April 20, sees 65 major watch brands, including Rolex, Patek Philippe and Cartier display their latest creations.<\/p>\n
Organisers are expecting around 60,000 visitors during the week — up from 55,000 last year — despite the Middle East war casting doubts on the travel plans of retailers from the Gulf states and East Asia.<\/p>\n
The conflict is “an additional challenge for the watchmaking industry”, Yves Bugmann, president of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, told AFP.<\/p>\n
The sector already had a lot on its plate, including the US tariffs blitz, China emerging from a long real estate crisis, the strength of the Swiss franc and the price of gold, he said.<\/p>\n
Before the war began, Jon Cox, an industry analyst with Kepler Cheuvreux financial services, was forecasting a rebound in Swiss watch exports in 2026, expecting growth of around five percent, he told AFP.<\/p>\n
But the uncertainties triggered by the conflict are now likely to leave the Swiss watch industry facing “weak growth” in exports, he said.<\/p>\n
Jean-Philippe Bertschy, an analyst at Swiss investment managers Vontobel, was forecasting four-percent growth at the start of the year, but is now leaning “more towards stagnation”.<\/p>\n
Bertschy said he would revise his estimates for 2026 after gauging the mood at Watches and Wonders.<\/p>\n
The Middle East accounts for just under 10 percent of the watch market.<\/p>\n
That “is not insignificant”, Bertschy told AFP, especially since the region has witnessed “strong growth in recent years”, with particular enthusiasm for top-end watches.<\/p>\n
– Attracting younger buyers –<\/p>\n
With the demise of the Baselworld salon following the Covid-19 pandemic, Watches and Wonders in Geneva has established itself as the chief display event for watchmaking in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Within less than five years, the number of exhibitors has almost doubled, with 2026 welcoming 11 new brands, including Audemars Piguet, a leading name in Swiss watchmaking.<\/p>\n
The fair is “an important opportunity to interact with other brands, engage with the public, and showcase our expertise”, the brand’s managing director Ilaria Resta told AFP.<\/p>\n
Inside the Palexpo convention centre, brands compete to show off their new products on lavish exhibitions.<\/p>\n
Tag Heuer had Formula 1 racing cars, Van Cleef & Arpels featured delicate water lilies and reeds, while IWC went for space exploration.<\/p>\n
Once reserved exclusively for industry professionals, the Geneva salon has gradually opened its doors to the public, turning into a platform for showcasing watchmaking expertise.<\/p>\n
While the first four days are for the industry only, the weekend and Monday are open to the public, with organisers seeking to seduce a new generation of younger buyers.<\/p>\n
Watchmaking is Switzerland’s third-largest export sector, after pharmaceuticals and industry.<\/p>\n
The sector suffered a blow during the pandemic, but bounced back quickly afterwards, breaking records for three consecutive years thanks to so-called “revenge purchases”, with some consumers using the savings made during lockdowns to stock up on luxury watches.<\/p>\n
But with a drop in demand in China, followed by US tariffs, the last two years have been tough for the sector.<\/p>\n
Swiss watch exports first fell by 2.8 percent in 2024 and then by 1.7 percent in 2025, to 25.6 billion Swiss francs ($32.5 billion).<\/p>\n
noo\/ag\/rjm\/nl\/rmb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Geneva watch fair, the watchmaking industry’s biggest annual\u00a0showcase, opened Tuesday with the impact of the Middle East…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1380,1393,39,65,17,8855,1233],"class_list":{"0":"post-49363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-geneva","8":"tag-afp","9":"tag-economies","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-geneva","12":"tag-switzerland","13":"tag-watch","14":"tag-watches"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116409941809738541","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}