Under the Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) between India and the four-nation EFTA (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) signed in 2024, India is phasing out import tariffs on Swiss watches<\/a> from 22% to 0% over a seven-year period. \u201cWe are very, very happy, of course, that this happened. It was a deal between our prime minister and your authority to bring advantages for the Swiss watch industry and also to Indian customers,\u201d Bosshard said.<\/p>\n
But currency valuation is a deterrent. The rupee has been falling for months \u2014 hitting a historic intraday low of Rs 92.02 against the US dollar on January 30 \u2014 on account of capital outflows, trade deficits and global imbalances. At the same time, the Swiss franc has strengthened over 16% against the US dollar over the past one year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a currency which is going through the roof,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a disadvantage for all exports\u2026making our products more expensive, but this we cannot change\u2026 Not only the watch industry, all industries have to adapt a bit in terms of prices.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In India, the trade deal has helped keep prices under control, said Bosshard who has been part of Swatch Group \u2014 the world\u2019s largest watch manufacturer with 16 brands including Breguet, Omega and Tissot \u2014 since 1996.
In 2024, India became Rado\u2019s largest market globally, ahead of China and the US, largely driven by sales in the \u20b91 lakh-5 lakh affordable luxury segment.India’s luxury market is forecasted to grow multi-fold to reach $30 billion by 2030 from around $7 billion in 2024, a recent report by consulting and advisory firm Deloitte said. \u201cIn terms of luxury watch shopping, India leads the world with 47% consumers buying timepieces from multi-brand platforms or marketplace websites, compared to the global average of 24% percent,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn all the countries, we had some periods of growth,\u201d Bosshard said. \u201cFor decades, in China there was growth\u2026 I believe that the market will come back, but, in the meantime, we have growth in India.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u20b96.8-billion Swatch Group in its latest annual report said key markets with high potential for future growth saw significant increases in 2025, with India, West Asia, Mexico, and Poland recording double-digit sales growth in all price segments. All Rado watches will continue to be imported from Switzerland, said Bosshard who has been steering the brand for six years now. \u201cWhen the customer buys a Swiss watch, he wants to have a product produced in Switzerland\u2026 Not in India or in Germany, or anywhere else,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are always doing this at the same place in Switzerland, and this is a part of the reputation and the credibility of all Swiss watches.\u201d<\/p>\n
He attributed Rado\u2019s growth in India to a combination of factors including economic growth, population, rising level of education and digitisation of information. \u201cEverywhere in India, people get information about luxury goods, about premium products, and, of course, it\u2019s creating more and more demand,\u201d Bosshard said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Delhi: Swiss luxury watchmaker Rado\u2019s global chief executive officer Adrian Bosshard said the price advantage following the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,179,18,155871,19,155874,155875,17,30101,155872,155873],"class_list":{"0":"post-323651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-eu-fta","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-india-eu-fta","14":"tag-india-fta-eu-watches","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-swiss-franc","17":"tag-swiss-watches","18":"tag-swiss-watches-india-eu-fta"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116024503452666458","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}