The CEO of Swatch Group AG, Nick Hayek, has said he doesn’t see the need for his company to regulate the market for second hand luxury watches, rejecting recent moves by Rolex and H. Moser & Cie.
“Why should we mix ourselves into the market of used watches?” Hayek said in January in a Bloomberg TV interview. “The people who want to buy used watches, they can buy it as they buy many other things. They don’t need us.”
According to Deloitte, the pre-owned luxury watch market is expected to grow to USD $25 billion by 2030.
Hayek said he sees huge potential for Swatch Group in China and admits to being surprised by the magnitude of the success of his company’s Omega MoonSwatch.
Purchases of Swiss watches have lagged recently in China amid the ongoing Covid situation and a worsening economic outlook, but sales have been more than compensated by the US market which led Swiss watch exports to a record high in December.
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