The 10 Biggest Luxury Watch Stories of 2023: A Recap

The luxury watch world was absolutely red-hot from 2019-2021. Prices for luxury watch prices in late 2021 were, well, kinda ridiculous. In 2023, prices normalized somewhat, Rolex waitlists got a little shorter, Swatch released their second luxury watch collaboration, and independent watchmakers kept making some jaw-dropping horological innovations. There were a couple corporate shake-ups worth mentioning, too. Here’s our breakdown of the ten biggest luxury watch stories of 2023.

Rolex Buys Bucherer

Arguably the biggest story of the watch world in 2023 was the announcement that Rolex is buying Bucherer. Bucherer is a famous jeweler and retailer that has been an authorized Rolex dealer since 1924. Rolex has historically shied away from direct retail, so on the surface, purchasing a large retail partner seems like a seismic shift in Rolex’s strategy, and an aim towards vertical integration.

However, Rolex insists that Bucherer will continue to operate separately. The sale of Bucherer quite possibly was driven by situational logistics more than any grand plans on Rolex’s end. The head of Bucherer, Jörg Bucherer, was near death in August 2023, and he had no heirs. So, selling to Rolex might have seemed like a natural move, given the century-long relationship between the companies. After all, Rolex is already run by a foundation (the Hans Wildorf Foundation) which is itself carrying on the legacy of an heirless founder. Mr. Bucherer died in November of 2023, but his family’s retail empire seems to be in good hands.

Breitling Buys Universal Genève

The second-most notable acquisition in the luxury watch world in 2023 was Breitling’s purchase of Universal Genève. Known for the Polerouter, Compax, and Tri-Compax (and to a lesser extent, the White Ghost), Universal Genève is a watch brand with world-class Swiss watchmaking history to draw from, although they’ve lost their way a bit in recent decades. It will be exciting to see what Breitling (along with their majority shareholders, Partners Group) has in store for the rebirth of UG. Breitling CEO Georges Kern has stated that “a dedicated team will be brought on board to allow Breitling and Universal Genève to operate as separate maisons,” so it will likely be a couple years before we see the results of this acquisition in stores.

Cartier is Now #2

For years, Omega held the #2 spot in terms of luxury watch sales figures, with Rolex decisively in the lead. Cartier’s parent company Richemont was buying back hundreds of millions of dollars worth of unsold and unwanted inventory as recently as 2016, but Cartier has made a turnaround in recent years, releasing popular variants of the Santos and Tank in particular. Morgan Stanley estimates that Cartier surpassed Omega in sales in 2022.

Despite some 2023 headlines like “Cartier owner Richemont sales disappoint,” Richemont sales actually grew by 6% in the most recent reported six-month period. Not great, but hardly catastrophic, especially given the recent cooling-off of the watch market as a whole, which brings us to our next topic.

Luxury Watch Market Cooling Off?

The luxury watch watch market, like any market, has boom and bust cycles. In 2006-2007, luxury watches were selling very well; then the the downturn of 2008-2009 hit hard. Decent examples of a vintage Rolex GMT-Master dropped from about $5,000 to $3,500 while many vintage Daytonas plummeted from about $50,000 to $30,000 in value. It only took a few years to return to 2008 prices, though. And by 2019, led by some ultra-popular releases like a new Rolex Pepsi, the luxury watch market was scorching hot again. The lockdowns and shutdowns of 2020-2021 significantly impacted the supply of luxury watches while demand grew even stronger, driving watch prices to never-before-seen heights, particularly for the most “hyped” pieces.

As 2023 comes to an end, it’s apparent that we are “past peak” when it comes to the luxury watch market–two full years past peak, in fact. Plenty of people predict increasing doom and gloom for the luxury watch world, expecting prices to keep dropping. Others would argue that recent watch price declines were simply a “correction,” and an overdue one at that. And indeed, prices for most models seem to have stabilized a bit. The turquoise Rolex Oyster Perpetual 41 no longer sells for $40,000, for example, but it has no signs of dipping below $20,000. And the Sprite GMT still sells for well over retail prices–but not the more-than-double-retail prices it fetched when it was first launched.

Steel Rolexes have been popular forever but if you could tell a Rolex enthusiast from ten years ago that multiple two-tone models, like the Rolex Root Beer and the “Bluesy” Submariner, would sell for above MSRP in used condition, well, they’d hardly call that a soft market. And that’s the market we’re still in today. So while the 2023 luxury watch market may be soft compared to late 2021, it’s still pretty hot compared to just about any other time in history. Grey market dealers might be increasingly reluctant to take on slow-moving inventory and lesser-known brands, but demand for the big sellers (Rolex Datejust, AP Royal Oak etc.) remains robust. We can’t predict the future when it comes to the economy, but luxury watch prices almost always trend the same way as the market overall.

Every Tudor is Now Made at Le Locle

This is a story that you probably won’t even see mentioned anywhere else, because it was the culmination of such a gradual development: Every Tudor watch is now assembled at Tudor’s own factory in Le Locle, Switzerland. The factory was opened in 2021, but it was mostly handling new releases at first, and final assembly for the rest of the Tudor lineup still occurred at Rolex HQ in Geneva. But by early 2023, Tudor had quietly begun slipping this language into their press releases:

Every TUDOR watch is assembled and fully tested to TUDOR’s superior standards at the new TUDOR Manufacture located in Le Locle, Switzerland

Tudor Press Release

Every Tudor watch! So now that they truly have their own factory fully up and running, it’s hard not to see Tudor as a legitimate manufacture in its own right, and not just a shadow of its sister company, Rolex. Tudor was working towards this point for years, and it seems like they’ve finally reached the endpoint of that vision. With their own in-house movement maker Kenissi at the other end of the building, Tudor has come a long way from its days of merely being a “Rolex with an ETA movement.”

Blancpain x Swatch

Speaking of corporate sister companies, the launch of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms x Swatch collaboration made big waves in September 2023. At Luxury Bazaar, we sell (and typically write about), well, luxury watches, but these fun sub-$500 collaborations are a noteworthy development, and they legitimately drive lasting interest in the luxury brands involved. Entry-level Blancpain watches are seeing increased attention. Looking at Google search trends for the word “Blancpain,” we can clearly see that interest in the brand has remained well above its pre-Swatch-collab baseline, even after the hype died down.

Conical Tourbillon

If you haven’t been paying attention to the ultra-high-end watchmaking world, you might not have noticed how many advancements have been made in the world of tourbillons recently. The triple tourbillon, elliptical tourbillon, twin triple-axis tourbillon, and single-axis constant-force tourbillon all first appeared within the past decade. And there’s another inventive tourbillon breakthrough for 2023: The HYT Conical Tourbillon.

In addition to the incredibly complex and distinctive liquid-filled time display that HYT is known for, this watch has a groundbreaking tourbillon movement designed by Eric Coudray, one of the greatest living watchmakers. This new “conical tourbillon” improves upon the “oblique tourbillon” invented by Walter Prendel in 1928. This monster of a watch has 533 parts–159 of them in the tourbillon cage alone.

At the very heart of the dial, where the conical tourbillon completes a clockwise revolution in 30 seconds, there are three spheres rotating at different speeds which are easy to observe: the first completes four turns a minute, the second five turns a minute, and the third six turns a minute, clockwise.

HYT

As mind-blowingly complicated as this movement is, the ultra-high-end watch world shows no signs of slowing down its march towards ever-more-sophisticated movements, and we’ll probably see more innovative takes on tourbillon watches in 2024.

Ilaria Resta incoming AP CEO

Chief executive changes in most of the corporate world are fairly standard fare, but the big names in the luxury watch world tend to keep their leaders for long periods of time. Rolex, for instance, is currently being led by its 6th CEO–ever. Audemars Piguet has also had leaders with generation-long stints at the top; they’re not the kind of company to pencil in an executive for a three-year turnaround window. So it’s particularly notable that Audemars Piguet has announced a new CEO that will take the reins in 2024: esteemed fragrance executive Ilaria Resta.

Although Ms. Resta has no watch industry experience, she has an extensive history of success when it comes to branding. Beauty Inc. named her “Brand Builder of the Year” in 2019 for her work with Procter & Gamble. Why would AP aim for someone that specializes in brand-building? Well, AP’s current CEO François-Henry Bennahmias told Revolution Watch quite openly, “Our focus for the immediate future is on women. We want to make our women’s watches the equivalent of the Hermès Birkin.”

That makes sense, as Audemars Piguet’s men’s watches (particularly the Royal Oak) are already wildly successful. Their manufacturing and quality are world-class as they are. But they have yet to make a gotta-have-it hit for the ladies’ market. Perhaps Ms. Resta will be the one to bring them their Birkin.

More on Audemars Piguet
Guide to Audemars Piguet Nicknames
Audemars Piguet Will Replace Stolen Watches… for Free!?
All About the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Diver
How Much Does An Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Cost?

Only Watch Scandal 2023

Every other year (usually), the Only Watch Auction, held by Christie’s in Geneva, auctions off one-of-a-kind pieces donated by various top luxury watch brands. Proceeds benefit Association Monégasque contre les Myopathies (AMM), an organization that does Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy research. The charitable nature of the event, combined with the fact that each piece sold is unique, often leads to stratospheric auction results. But perhaps the association wasn’t properly putting all the money towards DMD research that they should’ve.

On October 23, 2023, Only Watch released a press release fluffily touting the fact that they managed to start a clinical trial…before eventually getting to the point that “questions were raised about the allocation of funds and the governance of the AMM.” Audemars Piguet pulled out of the auction over those concerns. Supposedly Only Watch has been “rescheduled for 2024” but no date has been set.

Rolex Fined $100 Million by French Authorities

The other big scandal of 2023 is Rolex’s $100 million fine from the French competition authorities. What did Rolex do wrong? Well, they committed the mortal sin of…not allowing their authorized dealers to sell online. Ten years ago, one of Rolex’s authorized dealers tried to convince Rolex to let them sell online. Rolex said no and a few years later revoked their Rolex license; the possibly-retaliatory nature of that move could’ve been what piqued French regulators’ interest.

The regulators claim that the lack of online sales reduces competition and hurts consumers but…it’s not really clear how that’s the case. After all, without Rolex’s current policies in place, many of their pieces would be sold above MSRP. Plus, it’s unlikely that online sales would improve the Rolex waitlist situation for French consumers. Oh well, at least some bureaucrats got to make big headlines and a bunch of Internet commenters got to say “Ha, take that, Rolex! You big meanie!” And maybe soon some French Rolex fans will get to experience the joy of not-buying a Daytona online instead of not-buying a Daytona in person.

More on Rolex
What is the Best Entry-Level Rolex?
Best Alternatives to the Rolex Daytona
2023 Rolex GMT “Coke With Ice” Ref. 126758 RUSA
Rolex Pepsi Production Issues: Rumor or Reality?

That wraps up our recap of the luxury watch world’s defining stories of 2023. While some would say the year was characterized by a “cooling-off” of the market, demand from actual luxury watch enthusiasts remains strong. The “buying a watch as an investment” idea seems to have fallen out of vogue as quickly as it came, though, and for many of us, that’s welcome news.