Luxury crisis: sales of Swiss watches fall in the USA
A very particular signal on US consumption shows that monthly exports of Swiss watches to the US decreased in April for the first time in two years. The significance of these data may reveal that wealthy individuals are cutting back on their spending, particularly on luxury items, such as watches, amid fears of a recession.
On Thursday, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry released a report showing that exports to the United States fell by 4.9%. The decline was the first since January 2021. In addition to the United States, Singapore also recorded monthly declines. However, exports of Swiss watches to China have soared as the country's economy reopened after several years of draconian lockdown.
Bloomberg pointed out that Patek Philippe, Oris and Zenith have recently sounded the alarm about declining demand for their products.
Despite weakness in the US and Singapore, total exports of Swiss watches continued to increase in April, up 6.8%. Furthermore, exports increased by 10.5% in the first four months of the year.
Another sign of US consumer weakness is the Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index, which tracks the prices of the 50 most traded watches by value on the secondary market, showing a 26% decline over the past 12 months.
The collapse in demand for luxury watches in the US is further evidence that consumers are cutting back on spending, as the Federal Reserve has aggressively raised interest rates over the past 14 months and threatens to trigger a recession. Other indicators, such as credit card spending, are giving the same signal: Wealthy consumers are starting to spend less, one of the strongest signs of a creeping recession.
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The article Luxury crisis: sales of Swiss watches in the USA are declining comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/crisi-del-lusso-calano-le-vendite-di-orologi-svizzeri-negli-usa/ on Mon, 05 Jun 2023 07:00:52 +0000.