Hong Kong luxury Swiss watch sales face an uncertain future, as stores await a tourism rebound and mainland Chinese customers spend money at home
- Visitor numbers from mainland China to Hong Kong were hit by 2019 anti-government protests in the city and brought to a halt by the coronavirus pandemic that followed
- Now luxury-watch market experts are split over whether stores’ biggest customers, high-spending tourists from the mainland, will ever return in the same numbers
Is time running out for Swiss watch sellers in Hong Kong?
Despite leading the market for more than a decade, according to the Sell-Out Index, which measures the aggregated sales performance of the watch and jewellery industry in selected markets every month, in Hong Kong the value of retail sales of watches and jewellery in the first half of 2021 totalled US$2.5 billion, whereas it was US$5.7 billion during the same period in 2018.
Previously, the city – a tax-free shopping haven for mainland Chinese and international tourists alike – was China’s preferred shopping destination for Swiss watches.
But with its tourism-driven sales slowed by anti-government demonstrations in 2019 that deterred visitors from the mainland, and then brought to a halt entirely by a coronavirus-related ban on visitor arrivals since March 2020, the city’s retail sector has taken a beating.
Hong Kong’s watch retailers have had to reorient themselves to serve local buyers, while Chinese shoppers, unable to leave China, have redirected their spending domestically – making China the leading export market for luxury Swiss watches.
