Watch sales in the United States leapt by almost 36% in some price categories as retailers rushed to close deals with clients ahead of anticipated price rises in May that duly landed.
Fresh data from Luxury Watch Barometer, which curates point of sale data from over 2,500 luxury watch stores across the country, saw the biggest rise of 35.6% in the Luxury price segment, which covers watches priced at $5,000 to $10,000 but does not include any data on Rolex transactions.
Fred Levin, managing partner of LWB, says the April surge was the result of an extraordinary set of circumstances and the industry should not be sucked into thinking it is the start of another record period of demand.
“I have never seen a sales spike of 36% [year-on-year] in any month over the many years I have been tracking the watch market,” he tells WatchPro.
“But I believe this will be an exception. Retailers were contacting clients warning them of price rises to come, most of which kicked-in on May 1. This bought forward sales that might have happened later in the year,” he suggests.
News that Rolex would be raising prices by around 3% on May 1 reached WatchPro on April 23.
That was already a week after Swatch Group had confirmed bumps of 7-10% for its luxury brands.
Rolex retailers also took a 1% haircut on the margin they retain from each watch sale as part of the brand’s attempt to cover the 10% additional tariff imposed by President Trump.
Virtually all brands have now taken the decision to share the pain of the additional tariff between themselves, their retailers and customers
Ahead of these changes, retailers rushed to clear stock, not only because it would be cheaper for their clients, but also because margins were higher, particularly for watches bought before surging gold prices and rising value of the Swiss franc pushed up prices since the start of 2025.
Swiss watch exports to the United States also jumped in March by almost 14%, double the 6.7% growth seen in March, as manufacturers rushed to get product into the country before Mr Trump’s Liberation Day speech that — briefly — hit Switzerland with an additional 31% tax.
Although Mr Levin cautions against the luxury watch industry basing its future forecasts on the exceptional growth in April, there are reasons to hope that the market will stabilise at similar levels to 2024, assuming President Trump does not reinstate his “reciprocal” tariffs on the one-way trade in Swiss watches.
The stock market has recovered almost all of its losses since the April 4 White House address and the dollar has recovered some of the ground it lost against the Swiss franc.
Gold prices are still 28% up since the start of the year, but this tends to push up demand for gold watches.