WRISTWATCH STATISTICS

July 10, 2004, 18:00

Dave Freeman

In the August edition of the wristwatch magazine "WatchTime" ( for serious, modern wristwatch collectors I'd highly recommend it) the following information was published on the current status of global watch production.

I thought you may be interested to know this number is approaching 1.3 BILLION units per year. ( According to Japan Clock & Watch Association data )

The latest numbers for 2003 show (a) Analog Quartz 1.028 Billion, (b) Digital Quartz 250 Million and (c) Mechanical 17.0 Million

* Over the last five years Analog quartz has grown significantly.
* Digital Quartz has gone down.
* Mechanical wristwatches over the last five years have gone down from 30 Million
(1999) to 17 Million in 2003.

Japanese watch producers account for around 59% of global production, with around 96% of this production being analog quartz..

July 10, 2004, 18:11

Stephanie O'Neil

Dave,
Everyone needs a watch right?

What's global population?
Sad that mechanical production figures are low.

Interesting info. Thanks!

July 10, 2004, 18:32

Dave Freeman

Stephanie,
the latest Global population estimate stands at:

6,381,149,755

I.E. Approx. 6.38 Billion.

July 10, 2004, 20:00

Stephen L. Russell

Watch the population of the world grow!

July 10, 2004, 20:29

Lindell V. Riddle

Apparently another person every second.

Just WOW!!!

July 10, 2004, 21:09

Stephanie O'Neil

Really cool, Stephen!

Interesting, in 1970 population was half what it is today!

Thanks for the live interesting link Stephen!

July 11, 2004, 09:04

Jeffrey P. Hess

WE participate in a Goldman Sachs study of wristwatches every year.

Take a guess who the number one and number 2 sellers of wristwatches are in retialers shops?

THat is the easy question.

The stunner is "Which watch would most retailers LIKE to stock that they curetnly do not have?

Jeff Hess

July 11, 2004, 11:41

Carlos Flores

Jef,
Is it a trivia?

, can you give us some options?
Walmart must be the largest retailer I guess, and about the watch is ..Rolex?, Seiko?, that one is hard.

July 11, 2004, 12:35

Stephanie O'Neil

Hi Jeff,

Good questions! Will be eagerly interested in knowing Goldman Sachs study results!

1. I'm with Carlos- Seiko?
2. Bulova?

3. Rolex or Concord?

July 11, 2004, 13:05

Dave Freeman

Jeff,
are you talking about U.S. retailers or global retailers ?

Carlos, Walmart isn't everywhere ***

Probably the Swatch consortia has the largest gross sales.

Regarding the most sought over brand, possibly Tag Heuer is sought by a lot of US retailers. ( because of the Tiger Woods factor ). I don't know if this is true globally.

Much closer to home, within our IHC membership of 381:-
How many wristwatch folks do you think we have ?? ( let's hear from you !!!

)

July 11, 2004, 21:29

Jeffrey P. Hess

Mea Culpa...

The study is yearly and for luxury watches...

Rolex and Cartier are one/two and the number one watch that retailers wish they could carry or desire to carry is ...tada...Panerai!

And yes, it is worldwide..

Each year I order a couple of dozen of these...

I am in Canada now on vacation but when I get back I will post the address to get a copy...

Jeff Hess

July 11, 2004, 22:56

Dave Freeman

Jeff,
I didn't know you were limiting your questions to just luxury watches, otherwise I would most likely have answered as you did.

Do we have any idea what the biggest sellers are in popular/lower cost wristwatches

I think this is a very interesting topic we can all learn from.

PS Hope you have a nice vaction in Canada where it's cool. We're getting set for temperatures around 98 degrees all week.

Regards

July 12, 2004, 07:07

Lindell V. Riddle

Like Carlos and Stephanie my bet is Seiko might be the top-selling popular-price watch. Those who use them speak highly of their "tough-as-nails" performance. To my mind Seiko is a slightly up-scale version of the old Timex in reliability and value.

Yo Jeff, we all wanna see the Panerai!

YIKES DAVE, AT LEAST THAT'S FARENHEIT!... I HOPE!!!

July 13, 2004, 11:17

Dave Freeman

Lindell,
you're right about Seiko building some
rugged watches. For an every day watch, this Seiko Automatic, 200M Diver's watch shown below is a really great buy.

Even back in my Timex days in the 60's Seiko
was a company we measured ourselves against for delivering competitively priced watches which were reliable, rugged & above all quality products.