Swiss Watch Exports Suffer Largest Decline in 6 Years

A new report, released in a statement from the Swiss customs office, says that October shipments of mechanical watches declined 12 percent to $2B billion, the largest decline seen in six years. The country showing the biggest drop was Hong Kong, whose share of shipments dropped roughly 40 percent.

Swiss Watch sales make up about 10 percent of the country’s exports, which have decline over 3 percent over the first 10 months of 2015.

Perhaps not so surprising is that while Swiss watch sales are declining, smart watch sales continue to accelerate, led by the Apple Watch which is on track to sell more than 10 million units by the end of 2015. Other smart watches such as Android Wear and Pebble have also seen some growth, but nothing like Apple’s.

Despite folks believing that traditional watches would not be effected by smart watches, the opposite seems to have happened. In fact, company’s such as Fossil and Tag Heuer, who are known for making analog watches, are now getting into the smartwatch game with Tag unveiling their “Connected” watch earlier this month.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to help them much. Maybe Jony Ive was right when he said Switzerland is in “trouble.”