Luxury watches

Ikepod

In the U.S., sales of watches costing more than $100 fell by 65% last year, Swiss watch exports fell 22% last year, the biggest drop since 1932. Most of the people buy watch with their first bonus. In the year of recession, no bonus was given.  

But in 2010, sell of watches is improving, slowest improvment being in the segment of luxury watch.  Swiss watch shipments,  rose 14% in February, led by sales gains in Morocco of 174%, Saudi Arabia of 157%, the United Arab Emirates of 68% and China of 50%.

Limited-edition watches by top brands such as Patek Philippe, Rolex, Cartier, Richard Mille fared better than fashion brands such as Bulgari. Piaget saw a single-digit growth for the year. The watches above US $ 20000 are in demand in China. For Audemars Piguet, selling watches of average price US $35000, showed growth only in Latin America last year. In 2009 Piaget reduced its production of luxury watch by 10%. Audemars Piguet made 23000 watches against estimated output of 29000 wathces. 

Roberto Chiappelloni, owner of Manfredi Jewels in Greenwich, Connecticut, sold a $690000 watch by Greubel Forsey in December 2009, overall sales declined 15% from the previous year.

Ikepod, a tiny Swiss brand, introduced a "Cannonballs" model. instead of launching it at a watch fair, Ikepod released it at Art Basel Miami beach. The platinum model comes in an edition of 10, priced at 36,000 euros ($48,614).  Piaget is indicating its 2010 platinum Altiplano model as THE SLIMMEST automatic watch ever, at prices ranging from $18900 to $22000.