Luxury Watch Market 2027: The Brands Make Fewer Watches and Take Over Resale

The luxury watch industry goes into 2027 making fewer watches at higher prices and taking over more of their resale. Anyone buying or selling a fine watch next year is more likely to do it with the house itself. Decisions taken this autumn set that direction. Zenith told employees on 22 October that it will cut production and relaunch as a haute horlogerie house in 2029. Audemars Piguet opened its own certified pre-owned platform, The Watch Keepers, on 26 October and says it will extend it to other regions over time. Collectors’ money, meanwhile, is moving to independent watchmakers and to auction, where watches have become the largest category at Phillips.

The main risk for 2027 lies in the secondary market. The value of watches listed for sale reached a record in the third quarter for the six brands Morgan Stanley follows most closely, and price growth for Rolex slowed to its smallest gain in seven quarters. Whether buyers absorb that stock will decide the direction of resale prices next year.

Luxury Watch Market 2027: Fewer Watches at Higher Prices

The industry’s own suppliers expect fewer, more expensive watches in 2027. In Deloitte’s Swiss Watch Industry Insights, published on 30 September 2026, 90 per cent of 42 supplier executives were positive about the most expensive watches for the following twelve months, and 71 per cent were negative about entry-level models. These suppliers make the cases, dials and movement parts, so their order books show early where the brands are heading.

The shift has been under way for a decade: between 2016 and 2025, Swiss watch exports fell 43 per cent in volume while their value rose 34 per cent, and the average export price more than doubled, to 1,672 Swiss francs, according to Deloitte.

Zenith, LVMH’s manufacture in Le Locle, has turned that shift into a plan that runs beyond 2027. Benoît de Clerck, chief executive since January 2024, told employees on 22 October that the brand will make fewer watches at much higher prices and relaunch as a haute horlogerie house in 2029. “No company can lose money indefinitely,” de Clerck said. Zenith made about 8,500 watches in 2025 at an average retail price of around 15,600 Swiss francs, according to estimates by LuxeConsult and Morgan Stanley, and average prices after the relaunch could be closer to 50,000 francs. Around half of Zenith’s roughly 200 employees in Le Locle could lose their jobs, along with about 100 more worldwide, according to Le Temps, and consultations with employees run until 12 November. Zenith will continue to build movements for Hublot and Bulgari, and de Clerck says that order book is full into 2027.

The cost falls on entry-level and mid-range production. Montblanc, part of Richemont, finalised job cuts at its Le Locle site at the end of September. Of its 45 employees there, 23 have accepted or are negotiating a transfer to other group companies, including Cartier and Minerva, and six have been made redundant. Solenn Ochsner, union secretary at Unia in Neuchâtel, said the crisis in watchmaking was hitting entry-level and mid-range watches hardest.

Certified Pre-Owned Watches in 2027: The Brands Set the Terms

More watches are set to be resold through the brands that made them in 2027. Audemars Piguet launched The Watch Keepers on 26 October, a platform on which the manufacture authenticates its own watches for resale. Watchmakers check each watch against the archive and grade the case, dial and bracelet on a five-point scale. The watch remains the owner’s property and is stored by Audemars Piguet until it sells. The platform opens in Europe and Switzerland first, and Audemars Piguet plans to extend it to other regions.

• The owner chooses a fixed price or bidding and pays the commission, while the buyer pays only the sale price.
• A watch must be at least two years past its first sale.
• Buyers receive a certificate of authenticity and a two-year warranty.

Audemars Piguet has worked towards this for eight years. François-Henry Bennahmias, then chief executive, called pre-owned “the next big thing in the watch industry” in 2018, when the house tested it in a single Geneva boutique. Ilaria Resta, his successor, has now launched it. Vacheron Constantin, owned by Richemont, has certified its own pre-owned watches since November 2024.

For Rolex, certified pre-owned has already overtaken the grey market. In the first half of 2026, certified pre-owned Rolex sales reached 385 million US dollars by value, more than double the figure a year earlier, according to the market data company EveryWatch. Sales of unworn Rolex watches on the grey market fell by a quarter over the same period, to 335 million US dollars. Bucherer, owned by Rolex, was the largest seller of certified pre-owned Rolex watches.

Rolex is also bringing resale and auction into its own channels. Bucherer has opened what it calls France’s first dedicated Rolex boutique on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, with a room set aside for certified pre-owned watches. On 28 September, its Four Seasons Daytonas raised £37.3 million at Phillips in London, with the proceeds going to charity.

Authentication explains why the trade is moving towards the brands. At Bezel, an online watch marketplace, 34 per cent of the watches offered for sale in the first half of 2026 failed authentication. Karine Szegedi, who leads Deloitte’s consumer products and luxury practice in Switzerland, has described trust as “the overarching theme in pre-owned”.

Secondary Watch Prices in 2027: A Record Stock for Sale

The main risk for 2027 is the value of watches waiting for buyers, which reached a record in the third quarter for all six brands Morgan Stanley follows most closely: Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Cartier, Omega and IWC.

Secondary prices are still rising, though more slowly. Rolex prices rose 0.5 per cent in the third quarter, the smallest gain in seven quarters, in the WatchCharts index cited by Morgan Stanley on 13 October. Patek Philippe rose 2.6 per cent in the quarter and 17.6 per cent over the year.

Brand platforms also change who sets the reference price. If a watch sells below retail on The Watch Keepers, the discount appears on Audemars Piguet’s own marketplace and can no longer be attributed to the grey market.

Independent Watchmakers and Auctions in 2027: Where Collectors’ Money Goes

Collectors’ money has moved towards independent watchmakers and the auction room going into 2027. Secondary-market sales of independent watchmakers rose 89 per cent in the first half of 2026, to about 355 million US dollars, according to EveryWatch. Resales of F.P. Journe watches almost tripled.

Watches have become Phillips’ largest category. In the first half of 2026, it sold 235 million US dollars of watches, more than double the 115 million a year earlier and ahead of the 224 million it made in modern and contemporary art, out of total auction sales of 507 million. “Collecting is more international, more digitally connected, and more generationally diverse,” Martin Wilson, chief executive of Phillips, wrote in July.

The growth reaches well beyond Switzerland. In Mexico City, the SIAR fair for fine watchmaking brought together a record 43 brands in May 2026, among them Atelier Wen, which makes its watches with Chinese artisans in Guangzhou, and Konstantin Chaykin, the Moscow-based independent watchmaker.

What Will Decide the Luxury Watch Market in 2027

Four questions remain open for the luxury watch market in 2027.

Deloitte has set out the longer horizon. In its January 2025 study of the pre-owned market, Deloitte expected second-hand watches to reach the size of the market for new watches within about ten years. Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin and Rolex, through Bucherer, are already building their own resale channels with that horizon in view.

Continue · The reading Swiss Watch Exports in Q3 2026: Mexico, the US and a Recovery Built from Below Swiss watch exports rose 11.7 per cent in September 2026, with Mexico growing steadily and US shipments recovering.