The secret of mega success: Ten figures that show Rolex’s superiority

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Rolex’s sales last year were 10.1 billion francs. This is also evident in Morgan Stanley and Luxeconsult’s new report on the fifty largest watch brands in Switzerland. This is the first time a Swiss watch company has surpassed the 10 billion franc mark.

Last year, Rolex once again widened the gap with the second largest watch brand, Cartier. Now it is 7 billion francs. In other words: Rolex is three times bigger than Cartier.

Rolex achieved additional sales of 800 million francs in 2023 compared to the previous year. For comparison: This corresponds to the production per year of well-known brands such as Tissot or IWC – completely! With additional sales alone, Rolex would rank eleventh among Switzerland’s largest watch companies.

Rolex is the same size as the other top five brands combined. Specifically: it has the same turnover as Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe combined.

With sales of 10.1 billion, Rolex outsold all twelve Swatch Group brands in the top fifty. They came to 6.6 billion francs. In other words: Swatch brands together achieved only two-thirds of the sales of Rolex.

Switzerland’s ten largest watch brands (Rolex, Cartier, Omega, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, Longines, Vacheron Constantin and Breitling) generated approximately 2.34 billion francs more in revenue in 2023 than in the previous year. Rolex alone accounted for about 33 percent of that.

If you exclude Rolex, the other nine watch brands in the top 10 generated additional sales of almost 1.6 billion francs. Rolex achieved half of this on its own.

Rolex is now 2.6 times larger than in 2017. That year, Morgan Stanley and Luxeconsult’s watch study was published for the first time.

This is the number of watches Rolex sold last year. Among the top fifty, only Longines, Tissot and Swatch sold higher figures. Rolex is one of the few brands whose products are perceived as luxury, even though they are produced at industrial speed.

That’s how high Rolex’s market share is in 2023. No other luxury brand has such strong penetration in its segment. For comparison: Louis Vuitton has a 19 percent market share in handbags.

A big secret of the watch industry is the profitability of individual companies. Even the groups listed don’t show profits broken down by brand. Morgan Stanley and Luxeconsult estimate that four major private companies (Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and Richard Mille) generate about 62 percent of the industry’s total profits. And this has a turnover share of around 45 percent.

Source :Blick