Image source: Visual China
Written by Hu Shixin Wu Zha Edited by Yue Jiachen From Prism Tencent Xiaoman Studio
Written by Hu Shixin Wu Zao Edited by Yue Jiachen
Published by Prism Tencent Xiaoman Studio
As the year draws to a close, news of a Rolex price hike is making the rounds in sales circles.
Before New Year’s Day, Bai Hui, a pseudonym for a pre-owned high-end watch salesman, posted in his circle of friends a copy of the official Rolex price hike letter sent to dealers, and then wrote Family, Rolex is about to take off, buy early and enjoy early!
On January 1, Rolex’s annual price hike came as promised. Rolex’s hot-selling Submariner green steel models commonly known as the green ghost, for example, the model of the watch price rose from 90,300 yuan to 91,200 yuan, an increase of about 1 And Rolex’s flagship product, the full gold Ditonne, from 344,900 yuan to 393,000 yuan, an increase of about 14.
Price adjustments on New Year’s Day every year is the practice of Rolex. However, unlike the official price adjustment, the price of Rolex second-hand market continues to fall.
Since 2018, Lv Xing pseudonym began to pay attention to the high-end watch industry. He is a collector of high-end watches, and at the very beginning, he paid 22 4 million yuan to receive a Rolex Pink Diamond Ditonne from a Canadian watch dealer . However, the watch was too ostentatious to be worn on a daily basis. Unexpectedly, he made 90,000 dollars when he sold it three years later.
Later, Lu Xing became a loyal fan of Rolex. Every time he traveled to a city on business, he would go to the store to try on the watch and bought seven Rolexes. To preserve and increase the value of his Rolex like an investment product was his original intention, but the changing market slowly made him realize that Rolex no longer preserves its value.
According to the market price, my hands of Rolex a loss of 70,000, a loss of 180,000. Lv Xing lamented.
Second-hand market prices plummeted, a watchmaker lost 1.5 million dollars on a watch.
In the 2023 hit movie Lone Ranger, Wang Chuanjun played the role of Lu manager, wearing a Rolex green gold Di green plate all-gold section of the Ditonne , the public price of about 300,000 yuan. When Mr. Lu was arrested, he removed the watch and stuffed it into his daughter’s school bag.
Gu Gu Zi is a lot of 80 after 90 after the god drama, which also has such a scene Chicken in the escape, Chen Haonan gave him a Rolex, this watch for him in exchange for 50,000 yuan of life-saving money.
All along, Rolex not only has social attributes and cultural symbols, or market recognized hard currency, long-term in the seller’s market. Want to have a Rolex, in the counter queue is the norm, and those popular models, it is necessary to spend one or two years or even longer time waiting, some rare models even need to be allocated.
The imbalance between supply and demand makes the price of first-hand and second-hand upside down. Many customers who can’t buy their favorite watches at the counter can only buy them at a higher price on the second-hand market.
Second-hand high-end watch sales Bai Hui said, at present, more and more models of Rolex in the second-hand market has fallen below the public price. Once the myth of preservation of value, to be broken.
To the above mentioned Rolex Green Goldie, for example, in the second-hand market, the price of Green Goldie is a lot of people jokingly referred to as riding a super roller coaster, speculation on the price of a surge, calm down and then fell a big cut. Its public price was around 300,000 yuan, which was once speculated to 1 million yuan, and now it has dropped to around 500,000 yuan.
Shen Zhengqi is the founder of the Shanghai luxury small master watch company, but also a senior high-end used wrist watch seller. According to him, the current high-end watch second-hand market has been in a downward phase, the so-called yin and yang. In this state, the price of a watch may only drop by 300 RMB 500 RMB every day, but after a month, the cumulative drop will be very large. In the short term, you can’t see much change, but in the long term, it’s obvious.
At the end of 2022, Shen Zhengqi recovered an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 26585, which was priced at 3.85 million dollars. A few months past, the table has not been able to sell, in July 2023, he had to go out at a price of 2.35 million yuan, a direct loss of 1.5 million yuan, equivalent to a loss of a Porsche.
This is the biggest price drop I’ve ever experienced for a watch,” he lamented.
All along, Rolex has been the existence of thin profit margins in the eyes of second-hand watch dealers. Because the price is transparent, so the profit margin is not big, some popular models even watch dealers need to take goods at a premium. However, Rolex is in high demand, fast-moving, and not easy to accumulate pressure.
But now the situation is different. Some styles of watches if not sold for a long time, will lose money directly out, can not be pressed in the hand for too long.
A number of second wrist watch dealers said that the price of the watch does not have a clear dominant party, basically with the market. Shen Zhengqi said that some people who want to profit in the second-hand market, through leverage or funding to increase investment, once the poor liquidity or commodity prices did not rise, we have to pay the high cost of capital, extremely easy to crash, and disrupt the second-hand market.
Shen Zhengqi has gotten used to the dismal watch market. In the current market, many high-end watches, which are regarded as hard currency, are backlogged in sellers’ warehouses. In the last three months, the proportion of unsold watches in stock for more than six months has reached 33 percent. Moreover, the acquisition cost of these watches is generally at a loss of 15 to 20% compared to the current market price.
As of December 28 last year, the price index of Rolex watches on the second-hand market had fallen from a high of $30,199 on March 14, 2022, to $20,798, a drop of more than 30 , the lowest level since 2021, according to WatchCharts, the world’s second-hand watch trading platform.
You can make two Rolexes a minute.
When business was good, you’d start work at 10 a.m. and be busy until 2 3 a.m. before finishing. Now that business is slow, it’s just a normal day off. Recalling the past days, Bai Hui lamented.
The continued decline in high-end watch prices is the result of a combination of factors.
First, the market supply and demand relationship is changing. On the one hand, the supply of the high-end watch market is increasing. According to one statistic, Rolex produced more than 1.24 million watches in 2023, more than twice as many as the combined total of the next 11 luxury watchmakers. This means that about 3,400 Rolexes are produced every day, which is two per minute.
Rolex has responded Product scarcity is not our strategy. In March 2023, the company also announced that it was going to create three temporary production sites in Switzerland to increase watch production.
On the other hand, consumer demand is slipping. According to some analysts, young people are an important consumer force in the second-hand market for watches. When the economy is growing at a high rate, they have the expectation of wealth growth and buy without hesitation. When the economy slows down, their risk tolerance is weak and their willingness to spend is affected.
In addition, the concept of consumption is also returning to rationality. Previously, the popular models of Rolex in the second-hand market prices are inflated, forming a bubble. Shen Zhengqi mentioned, to Rolex Panda Di white plate steel Ditonne for example, the counter price is about 100,000 yuan, the second-hand price to 200,000 yuan at the beginning. From about 100,000 yuan public price premium to more than 200,000, for the secondary market is unhealthy. He said.
Shen Zhengqi bluntly The watch itself is an industrial product, the wearable attribute is the essence of the watch, but due to excessive marketing, the mechanical watch is labeled as a work of art, the price is far more than it is.
According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, in October 2024, the overall export value of Swiss wristwatches fell 2 2 year-on-year to 2,343 billion Swiss francs, which is equivalent to 19.37 billion yuan. Among them, the Swiss watch exports to China fell continuously, the Swiss watch exports from mainland China and Hong Kong led the decline with year-on-year decreases of 38 8 and 14 8.
In the face of the current market situation, the brand’s own sales strategy has also been adjusted. A Rolex domestic dealers in order to complete the annual sales targets, the original popular models of watches need to be matched with three to five relatively cold models, now only need to be matched with one to two, which makes the cost of acquiring popular models reduced.
For example, in the past, if you wanted to buy a Rolex Black Ice Candy Sunday Calendar with black dial, customers often needed to buy additional other watches worth about 300,000 to 500,000 yuan, but now the cost has been significantly reduced, and the market price of the Black Ice Candy has been adjusted downward from the original 480,000 yuan to 420,000 yuan.
On January 1 this year, the public price of the Black Ice Candy rose from $37.25 million to $395.7 million. This means that the premium margin has been further reduced.
In Shen Zhengqi’s opinion, after the ups and downs, the market has a clearer understanding of wristwatches, which is conducive to future business. He believes that treating watches as a normal commodity transaction and returning to rationality is a sign of healthy development of the industry.
In addition, as the heat of high-end watches cools down, some consumers are turning to mid- and low-priced watch products.
According to Swiss watch giant Swatch’s financial report for 2023, the group’s net sales for the year rose 12 6 year-on-year to CHF 7,888 million Net profit rose 8 1 year-on-year to CHF 890 million Swatch Group pointed out that its brands in the mid- and low-priced segments have gained incremental demand in the Chinese market.
In fact, since 2022, the Swatch Group has been launching co-branded watches between its popular Swatch brand and the same group’s premium brand, Omega Blancpain. These affordable watches are continuously sought after by many young people.
In 2023, for example, the Moon Swatch collection launched by the Swatch brand in collaboration with Omega sold 2 million pieces, contributing 73% of the Swatch brand’s sales. In March last year, Swatch and Omega’s new co-branded Speedmaster Snoopy collection was launched in selected stores, with consumers queuing up to buy it, and the product quickly sold out as soon as it hit the shelves.
Rolex officially sells pre-owned watches too?
As the industry’s big brother, Rolex is sure to control the price. Many second-hand merchants are in a wait-and-see situation, and the all-gold series on hand are not in a hurry to sell out at the moment. For Rolex’s price adjustment, Bai Hui commented.
Although Rolex carries out a global price adjustment at the beginning of each year. However, since 2022, the price adjustment has become frequent.
In January 2022, Rolex raised retail prices in most markets around the world by an average of 3 5 , and in September and November of that year, Rolex raised prices for models such as the Submariner and the Daytona in the UK and Eurozone markets, respectively, by an average of 5 . Just four months later, the price increases were finalized.
Firstly, to create the illusion of price increases and to give customers the illusion of preserving value, and secondly, to further enhance the brand’s image. The more high-end the watch, the more the price increase is for sales and profits, with the aim of realizing quick cash. Luxury research expert Zhou Ting, president of the Institute of Customer Research, said in an interview with Times Finance.
Zhou Ting also said that although pricing has risen, a high-end watch brand store discounts and the brand’s support for dealers are increasing. In addition to some popular products, many models are actually being sold at reduced prices in disguise. She believes that this has also had a significant impact on prices in the second-hand market.
Lv Xing, a high-end watch collection enthusiast, also believes that Rolex maintains the tradition of increasing prices every year to show their value retention and highlight their image as a luxury product.
Shen Zhengqi speculates that Rolex’s price increase may be based on the international market and brand strategy. He believes that these are all illusions and bubbles. Some second-hand watch dealers predict that as the public price rises, the price in the second-hand market will also rise one after another. For second-hand watch dealers, this kind of behavior is actually overdrafting the future.
It is worth noting that Rolex has also personally come down and started selling used watches in China.
In the second half of 2024, Rolex official used watches officially entered the Chinese market, the first place for the Oriental Watch Company in Hong Kong, China. At present, Rolex official pre-owned watches for sale are all discontinued models, refurbished by Rolex official, and provide additional two-year warranty service. The price of official pre-owned watches is about 15% higher than the market price.
For example, the official pre-owned price of a 2016 Blanc de Blancs is HK$228,000, which is about RMB 206,000, while the pre-owned price in the domestic market is about 180,000 yuan.
For ordinary consumers, this may be considered as good news, as they no longer need to worry about buying fake watches in the complicated market. Rolex’s personal participation in the second-hand market actually sets a reference price for pre-owned Rolex watches.
In addition, according to fashion media outlet Gorgeous, the headquarters of Rolex’s Swiss watch and jewelry retailer Carl F. Bucherer has confirmed that it will open its first directly-managed store in the Chinese market at Shanghai’s TaiKoo Hui. Previously, Rolex did not have any directly-managed stores in the Chinese market, and all its counters were dealers.
It is reported that Rolex will also be in the direct store on the second floor of the second-hand store with official authorization, in addition to sales, the store also undertake Rolex two wrist watch recovery business.
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