This is the second part to our interview with Carlo Terreni, co-founder and board member of NetComm Suisse Association. MarketPlus will be a media partner to the event e-Commerce meets Fashion […]
Rolex, the luxury Swiss watchmaker, is the brand with the best corporate reputation in the eyes of consumers, according to a new global survey.
Reputation Institute (RI), a reputation management consultancy, each year compiles a list of the top 100 most reputable companies in the world based on more than 170,000 ratings collected across 15 countries.
Using its proprietary RepTrak measurement system, RI tracks consumers’ perceptions across seven key areas: products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance.
Swiss watch and jewelry maker Swatch Group Thursday reported that its fiscal 2016 net income declined 47% to 593 million Swiss francs from 1.119 billion francs in the year-ago period.
Swiss watchmakers have been grappling with eroding sales in their biggest markets, Hong Kong and the United States, and tourist shoppers avoiding Europe for fear of extremist attacks, but recently mainland China sales turned the corner.
Operating result for the year fell 44.5 percent to 805 million francs from 1.451 billion francs last year. The group’s operating profit margin deteriorated to 10.7%, from 17.2% last year.
Swiss watch exports registered one of its shallowest falls of last year in December, yet marking a decline for the whole of 2016, figures from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry showed Thursday.
Watch exports declined 4.6% year-on-year in December to CHF 1.7 billion. Exports for the whole year tumbled 9.9 percent to CHF 19.4 billion. The annual decline is the worst performance since exports fell 22 percent in 2009 in the wake of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the subprime mortgage crisis.
Switzerland has been an attractive destination for Chinese tourists in recent years, especially due to their growing interest in winter sports according to a report by the Swiss Chinese Chamber of Commerce. With China’s ski industry expected to grow rapidly over the next five to 10 years, there will be greater demand for trips to ski destinations such as Switzerland.
Statistics from the Swiss government show that 2015 saw a 33% increase in the number of hotel bookings by Chinese tourists. It is part of a trend that has been taking place over the past decade.
Richemont improved watch sales in its own stores helped luxury goods, the swiss company said Thursday; sales during the last three months of 2016 increased 6% from the previous year, offering hope that the battered luxury goods sector may have turned a corner.
The increase was driven by its jewelry unit, offsetting a slight drop in specialty watch sales.
Geneva-based Richemont said sales increased to €3.09 billion in the three months to December 31, from €2.93 billion a year earlier.
On November 7, one of Israel’s leading diamond corporations, the Dalumi Group, announced that it had purchased a company called Zoara.com, an online luxury jewelry retailer that is active in more than 40 countries, selling loose diamonds, diamond engagement rings and diamond jewelry. Founded in 2008, Zoara.com is an e-commerce platform devoted to the exclusive sale of loose diamonds, luxury jewelry and precious gemstones. Operating on a multilingual and multi-currency digital platform, local versions of its website are available the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Valenzuela, Peru, Mexico, Spain, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. According to the announcement put out by the two companies, Zoara.com will now enjoy direct access to wholesale suppliers within the diamond industry, enabling it to present an updated online product catalog of luxury jewelry and more than 200,000 loose diamonds, which the companies said is unprecedented in terms of its volume and variety in the market.
IWC Schaffhausen watches costing as much as $121,000 will go on sale at Mr Porter and Net-A-Porter on November 18, as the Swiss watchmaker tests whether online shoppers might help pull it out of an industry slump.
IWC has never before partnered with an online-only luxury retailer; Net-A-Porter will launch with a curated selection of timepieces across the Pilot’s Watches and Portofino families.
