3 days ago
Why Swatch Is Facing Tough Times
The Swatch brand is credited with having saved a Swiss watch industry that had been laid low by the so-called quartz revolution. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, these less expensive and more accurate watches from an ascendant Japan upended European mechanical watchmaking. Swatch's response? Tap into the '80s zeitgeist with colorful, low-priced designs—funky, artistic, eclectic and made for collectors along with a whole new demographic that saw them as fashion, not function.
Swatch used its skyrocketing revenue to support its more staid, traditional brands while acquiring new ones. But fast forward to today, and the market's changed: phones and smartwatches have undercut low-cost watches, leaving luxury as the main engine for growth. In this Bloomberg Originals mini-documentary, we show how that change hasn't favored Swatch. And a new set of problems, from low sales in China to Donald Trump's tariffs, have made matters even worse.
