Watch exports rise – but China remains a weak market
The Swiss industry shipped significantly more abroad in September. That is neither proof of a global sales boom nor a contradiction of falling luxury stocks.
The Swiss watch industry exported more in September 2026 than a year earlier. According to the industry association FH, the value of goods rose by 11.7 percent. At the same time, exports to China declined. The latest data therefore do not describe a uniform recovery, but an industry whose sales markets are diverging sharply.
The contrast matters when falling luxury share prices are used as a benchmark for the entire industry. In its headline, the Financial Times puts the market value losses of luxury groups at around 250 billion euros and points to weakening Chinese demand. Yet that headline allows no conclusion about a corresponding loss of revenue, nor about an equally large slump in Swiss watch exports.
Delivered is not yet sold
The FH figure for September is around 2.23 billion francs. Since the start of the year, exports add up to 19.5 billion francs; compared with the first nine months of 2025, that is an increase of 2.7 percent. The strong September therefore cannot be equated with the course of the year so far.
What is recorded are goods crossing the Swiss border at declared export prices. The figures do not show whether a watch already sits on a customer's wrist or still lies in a retailer's warehouse. The later retail price in the shop is a different quantity as well. Higher shipments can serve demand or build up inventories; the statistics alone do not distinguish between the two.
For employees and suppliers, this difference is as relevant as it is for investors. An industry-wide plus does not permit a reliable conclusion about the order situation at a particular company. The association explicitly warns against deriving individual companies' results from its aggregated figures. Nor can a weaker share price be directly equated with fewer Swiss jobs.
China remains weak, other swings need context
In September, exports to China fell by 14.2 percent. Exports to the USA, by contrast, rose by 85.7 percent. For both markets the association points to the comparative base: a weak month a year earlier makes today's growth look larger, a strong base sharpens a decline. The percentages measure changes against September 2025, not against the previous month.
France stands out with an increase of 128.2 percent. The FH considers a shift of trade flows between European markets a possible explanation. Turning that into an equally large French consumption boom would be premature. A look at the export route alone protects against a false economic story.
Luxury is not a uniform market
Within exports, too, value and unit numbers diverge. The number of wristwatches exported rose by 19.9 percent, their value by 11.6 percent. That points to a changed composition of shipments, but does not prove general price cuts in retail. Anyone calculating the price of a specific watch from these figures confuses the average of a basket of goods with a concrete offer.
Company data must also be read by product and period. For April to June 2026, Richemont reported sales growth of 24 percent at constant exchange rates at its jewellery maisons, and eight percent at its specialist watch brands. In China, Hong Kong and Macau combined, these watch brands developed more weakly than other parts of the group.
That release of 15 July is not a new snapshot of October. But it shows why a general luxury verdict cannot be transferred to every watch segment. Jewellery, fashion and watches serve different purchase occasions. Moreover, a group aggregates its sales differently than the customs statistics aggregate all Swiss exports.
Three measures instead of one crisis number
The next checkpoints are already scheduled: Richemont intends to present its half-year results on 13 November, the FH its October statistics on 19 November. Only then can newer company figures and a further export month be examined. Until then, statements about the entire autumn business are necessarily provisional.
A market value reflects how investors assess future earnings. It also changes with interest rates, risk appetite and expectations for profit margins. Export values, by contrast, measure goods flows. Actual shop sales answer yet another question: whether end customers buy the products. None of these quantities can replace the other two.
For Switzerland, a sober interim assessment therefore remains: shipments are growing, China remains difficult and individual country jumps require explanation. Whether a sustainable recovery develops from this must be shown by further monthly data and company reports. A large stock market loss figure is a warning signal for expectations – but not yet a diagnosis for every workbench in the watch industry.
Sources
- Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH: statistics and methodology
- FH: Swiss watch exports in September 2026
- Richemont: sales in the quarter from April to June 2026
- Financial Times: market value losses of luxury groups
- Title image: Ypsilon from Finland / Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0
- Article image: Micky Aldridge / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Image licence: CC BY 2.0
