closing tag is in template navbar
timefactors watches



TZ-UK Fundraiser
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 51 to 68 of 68

Thread: What’s the future of watches?

  1. #51
    Craftsman
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Saudi Arabia
    Posts
    582
    Quote Originally Posted by Danstone View Post
    Interesting thread. I might be alone but I can see the end of mechanical watches market, at least as we currently know it, coming very soon and even the likes of the mighty Rolex being consigned to the history books by the end of my lifetime. The reason being that the younger generation just don’t wear them in anywhere near the numbers required. And it’s not that a great many are wearing smart watches either, they just don’t need a watch as their phones are in their hands at all times. I remember discussing watches with a group of new graduates years ago and them telling me that watches weren’t needed anymore and me thinking they’ll grow out of it. Those graduates are in their thirties now and still, those that I still know, do not wear watches.
    The lesser mass-production brands will be the first to go and the bigger brands will continue to do what they are doing now, increasing the prices, artificially creating demand and spending millions to put their products on the wrists of influencers to maintain the perception of them being luxury items as long as they can. These brands will be ok so long as the current 40+ year olds are buying but they’ll struggle once we bow out of this game and their market becomes much smaller and much more at risk of being wiped out by said influencers overnight. I certainly don’t see a huge number of collectors coming in the next generation and, whilst there may be the odd straggler or the occasional revival, it won’t be enough to maintain any of the current mass producers as viable businesses.
    I agree with what you say somewhat but don’t believe we will see the end of Rolex. The stragglers will be our children who have grown up around watches like many of us did so with our parents.
    These will be the generation that will enjoy the benefits of can I say better prices as manufactures all compete and would drive prices down or offer significant discounts.
    The likes of ALS, Vacheron, AP and PP, will I believe struggle to maintain sales seen previously and in the next 10 years waiting lists will be a thing of the past as we bow out and the next generation pick up the baton. This will be as mentioned in previous post a smaller breed of WIS and hit the mechanical market as you say.

  2. #52
    Craftsman
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    London
    Posts
    986
    I’m in two minds on this. On the one hand I think it’s a mistake to think the roughly 30 year revival of mechanical watches will continue. Think what happened to pocket watches once lifestyles and technology changed. I think I’m at the younger end of members here and many of my friends don’t wear a watch and have no interest in spending decent money on one. The ever increasing prices for both watches and servicing is also limiting the market.

    On the other hand, there is more and more buzz around watches on social media. I see some people of my age getting into watches once their incomes increase. So I can see it remaining as a hobby. Maybe one parallel is hifis. There used to be hifis available at every price point. Now most people use phones, Spotify etc but there is an active, but smaller, enthusiast market.

  3. #53
    Grand Master MartynJC (UK)'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Somewhere else
    Posts
    12,336
    Blog Entries
    22
    Quote Originally Posted by momentum View Post
    ... I see some [young] people of my age getting into watches once their incomes increase. So I can see it remaining as a hobby. Maybe one parallel is hifis. There used to be hifis available at every price point. Now most people use phones, Spotify etc but there is an active, but smaller, enthusiast market.
    Interesting viewpoint. I guess we need to remember that being a watch forum member puts us in a tiny minority to start with, compared to the general population. The watch buying demographic is presumably under scrutiny by the large marketing departments of the various brands. I only just received a push email from AP and collaboration with music artists.

    Comparison to hifi is spot.

  4. #54
    Grand Master snowman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Hampshire
    Posts
    14,534
    Quote Originally Posted by ktmog6uk View Post
    I don’t know anyone under 25 that wears anything other than a smart watch. That’s the future right there.
    Will be interesting to see whether they're still wearing them when they're 40 or 50, though.

    You might be right, but it might be an age demographic thing.

    I don't think many people under 30 ever had a big interest in watches - Sure you needed one, but you never thought about the brand beyond it being one with a reputation for reliability.

    M
    Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?

  5. #55
    Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2017
    Location
    London
    Posts
    2,502
    The functionality issue is missing the point though, the cheapest digital Casio has beaten any mechanical watch for the last 30-40 years. From this lens, its not plausible that Patek can charge £18,950 for just a manual wind time only, then £29,150 just to add a date, make it annual calendar and that’s £36,430, and don’t even want to adjust it even once a year, well for that privilege a perpetual will be £74,690 please, want a stop watch function on top, let’s make it £135,710 etc

  6. #56
    Master draftsmann's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Location
    Malta and sometimes bits of Brit
    Posts
    5,043
    Excellent topic for discussion!

    One factor to my mind is that the technology of the automatic watch was pretty much perfected decades ago. I have watches that have passed their 60th birthday but are still perfectly functional as well as aesthetic. A 1960s Rolex is still highly desirable, wearable and usable.

    The same doesn’t go for say a 1990s mobile phone. Years ago I thought about spending out on one of those Vertu phones. I’m glad I didn’t!! That would have been several hundred pounds down the drain on technology that was fit for the bin ages ago. I think there still are “luxury” mobile phones and probably even smartphones. Maybe there is a market for them but it is tiny. But you’ll find Apple devices in the pockets of everyone from bartenders to oligarchs.

    I don’t think high end watches will go anywhere any time soon, any more than other vintage jewellery. Lesser brands will become marginalised unless they really have something special about them- and they will then become the new vintage “costume jewellery”.

  7. #57
    I do think the world has changed a lot in the 40 years I’ve been ‘into’ watches. I’ve had a bit of a ‘reverse’ experience compared to many (I think). I bought a brand new Submariner 5513 with my first pay cheque - well, my first commission cheque - about 1987 when I was 18. Bought it for about £750 because I wanted a good watch to keep forever (yeah right!) - I ended up selling it to David Duggan a few years later as a deposit on my first flat, wore various Rolex for years until tbh I got bored and they got too expensive (it’s hard to spend £8k+ on a new one when you had all the nicer classics brand new for around £2k and sold them anyway as you got bored!) anyway I digress. In that time my friends all wanted a ‘proper’ watch and most had a Tag or a Seiko, a fair few had the Bond Seamaster in the 90’s but people knew I was ‘into’ watches as I always wore a Rolex. What I didn’t like was my ‘city’ friends reaction - ‘ooh is that real, wow you must be loaded’ - I’ve never been a golf club/works in the city/drives a BMW bloke, I went to a private school full of aspirational yuppies with Ralph Lauren shirts and dads driving Porsches so knew a lot of that type but it just wasn’t me. However, I suspect they are still into displays of conspicuous wealth so most probably wear a Rolex/Patek nowadays and I imagine the whole city ‘image’ still includes expensive accessories as a kind of alpha male display thing. I get it, I’m not being critical, it’s how that world seems to work. But those more ‘ordinary’ less showy people who used to covet a Tag or a Seamaster in their 20’s don’t seem to exist any more? They spend their money on deposits for stratospherically priced first properties, holidays and the latest phone on contract (when I was 18 that just didn’t exist) ,broadband, and yes maybe a smart watch or an ironic cheap Casio - watches seem to have lost their cachet somewhat, and the Seamaster, Seiko and Tag is now so expensive and - compared to a lot of fancy tech like phones and smart watches - so dull and overpriced I can’t say I’m surprised. I think the 18 year old me, supplanted to 2021, would buy an iPhone 12 instead of that Submariner tbh


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  8. #58
    Grand Master
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Wakefield, West Yorkshire
    Posts
    22,498
    Nice post Robdad, I think you’ve touched on a few bits of the story before.

    Taking a logical approach its hard to see much future for the traditional watch in the mainstream. With the demise of the repair trade, aided and abetted by the Swiss brands refusing to make parts freely available, it’ll become more more difficult and expensive to maintain them too. I could be wrong but in 10 years time a traditional watch will be a rare sight in the wild .
    Last edited by walkerwek1958; 16th January 2021 at 13:04.

  9. #59
    I dont think anything will change dramatically only trends will change but there will always be a place for watches. The main reason I see it is because regardless of what some may say they are very much an accessory than a necessity. A few years back old £20 Casio digital watches became the trend for young kids to own watches that had been forgotten for over 20 years. I also dont think the decline of independent watchmakers will make much difference as my guess would be the majority of people would just walk into a shop and ask for it to be sent back to the company to look at. I still see plenty of people starting their first good job looking to buy a mechanical watch to go with the image so to me there will always be a place for watches.

  10. #60
    Grand Master MartynJC (UK)'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Somewhere else
    Posts
    12,336
    Blog Entries
    22
    I am going to counter. And say that 99.8% of the population (based on my experience of a city office life and a population size of about 300) - even if they wear a watch (I don't count apple watches) - would think it madness to pay any more than £200 and would spend that on a Seiko, Citizen etc quartz powered watch. The remaining 0.2% of the affluent population will be the target for the mechanical watch brands that typically is of the older demographic too with more disposable income. I guess that will be enough to keep some of the watch manufactures in business but not to the extent we see now. I suggest there will be further shake downs and group amalgamation ownerships, even if the brand names remain.

    Mechanical watches may go the way of the fob watch.

  11. #61
    Craftsman
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    SW UK
    Posts
    465
    Quote Originally Posted by Alansmithee View Post
    I don't know why but I keep thinking of Elvis memorabilia - prices went up and up and it was a sure thing to make money and then... prices started to drop because people who were interested died off. .
    Fascinating post, I'd not really thought about it before, but the watches that 'grab' me are definitely watches in the style that caught my imagination as a schoolboy watching programmes in an era that could be described as 'Jacques Cousteau', and were way out of my schoolboy financial reach.
    I've no data, but I wonder how much of the vintage and vintage homage market is driven by 50-somethings harking back to the watches that caught their imagination when much younger? ...and, with
    our ageing, that market will pass as per your elvis example

  12. #62
    Grand Master Dave+63's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    East Sussex
    Posts
    15,914
    Quote Originally Posted by MartynJC (UK) View Post

    Mechanical watches may go the way of the fob watch.
    I’m not sure how long until we see this but I’m sure it will happen eventually.

  13. #63
    Craftsman
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    SW UK
    Posts
    465
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave+63 View Post
    I’m not sure how long until we see this but I’m sure it will happen eventually.
    I don't fully understand the fascination with mechanical over quartz... nor the pricing differential; movements that have a price differential of tens of pounds have a differential of hundreds once in a watch; and for that disproportionate premium, you get a watch with servicing costs, that will break if dropped onto a hard surface, will be affected by magnetic fields such as phones, and which is likely to have iffy accuracy. Never quite makes sense to me 🤔

  14. #64
    Grand Master Dave+63's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    East Sussex
    Posts
    15,914
    Quote Originally Posted by Brauner Hund View Post
    I don't fully understand the fascination with mechanical over quartz... nor the pricing differential; movements that have a price differential of tens of pounds have a differential of hundreds once in a watch; and for that disproportionate premium, you get a watch with servicing costs, that will break if dropped onto a hard surface, will be affected by magnetic fields such as phones, and which is likely to have iffy accuracy. Never quite makes sense to me 🤔
    Welcome to the world of watches. It’s world completely devoid of logic!

  15. #65
    Craftsman
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    SW UK
    Posts
    465
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave+63 View Post
    Welcome to the world of watches. It’s world completely devoid of logic!
    😂

  16. #66
    Grand Master abraxas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    London
    Posts
    33,737
    There are cultures that like to show off and play one one-upmanship/one-upwomanship. Especially towards the East, and they will keep the industry going for many decades to come. They most definitely like Swiss and German upper and middle tier brands. On the other side, the West will be buying Grand Seiko and Chinese throw-aways.

    Watches are man's only wearable decoration and as such they will be around for a long time.



    Let's put it this way. Watches are going to be about longer than anybody here now. So, who cares what happens after we are gone?
    "Owning one is almost as satisfying as making one." ~ Rolex 1973

  17. #67
    Grand Master Dave+63's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    East Sussex
    Posts
    15,914
    Quote Originally Posted by abraxas View Post
    Let's put it this way. Watches are going to be about longer than anybody here now. So, who cares what happens after we are gone?
    God, if somewhat depressing, point.

  18. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by MartynJC (UK) View Post
    ^^^^
    By that time we will not be allowed outside our houses without these traceable wearables - with which the "authorities" will have complete access to MediC records and realtime Temp Stats and Bloods readings, as well as GeoTag data. All for our own safety of course.

    On the other wrist the old timers will be wearing their anachronistic mechanical devices. All lower tier manufactures would have gone out of business and parts for the remaining brands can only be serviced by their own branded service departments (so they like us to believe).

    On a contrary basis anything worn by the young affluent insta-crowd (whatever platform it is) will have their rich followers buying the same products in droves. The few remaining independents will be forced to merge with the two or three venture capitalist backed groups to remain viable.

    Pricing - more extortion >10K will survive, below 10K will die.

    The mechanical watch is dead. Long live the mechanical watch.

    Personally I wear a fitness tracker and a watch.
    I also wear a fitness tracker and a watch. One for each wrist (rather than the same). Discreet black fitbit. I really wish that there were more discreet fitness trackers.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Do Not Sell My Personal Information