The Swiss watch industry is becoming a game of extremes – a few giant brands are pulling away at the top, while many others are quietly struggling to keep up. And this is the part most people miss: the market isn’t just slowing down, it’s splitting into clear winners and losers.
Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult’s 2025 Top 50 Watch Brands report lands just days after Vontobel’s latest Luxury Goods study, which had already outlined the 10 largest watch brands and reviewed how the industry changed over the past year. In contrast, the Morgan Stanley x LuxeConsult analysis goes much deeper, offering a detailed annual breakdown of how the global watch business is evolving. It ranks the top 50 brands by both revenue and number of watches sold, relying on carefully constructed estimates and industry modelling rather than brand-provided figures. For anyone trying to understand where the watch world is really heading, this report has become a kind of yearly benchmark.
After record-breaking sales levels highlighted by Morgan Stanley in 2023 and the first signs of a slowdown during 2024, the 2025 edition of the report confirms and intensifies this cooling trend. More than that, it shines a spotlight on a powerful structural shift: a sharp polarisation of the market, a pattern that mirrors what we see across the broader luxury sector. A tiny group of top brands now captures more than half of the entire Swiss watch market – a level of concentration that would have been hard to imagine a decade ago. But here’s where it gets controversial: is this healthy consolidation or the beginning of a long-term squeeze on mid-tier and entry-level players?
The report’s headline conclusions for the Swiss watch market in 2025 are sobering. For the second year in a row, the industry is shrinking in value terms, echoing the export statistics previously published by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. Exports fell by 1.7% in value, and the total estimated retail value of the Swiss watch market (excluding VAT) now sits at around CHF 49 billion. According to Morgan Stanley, the global wholesale market for Swiss watches in 2025 is roughly CHF 25.9 billion, while the FHS records exports of CHF 24.4 billion. Two consecutive years of decline may not sound dramatic on paper, but for an industry used to long stretches of growth, it marks a meaningful shift.
Even more striking than the drop in value is the collapse in volumes over a longer time horizon. The report points out that the number of Swiss watches shipped has more than halved since 2011. If you roll back even further, total volumes are down about 44% compared to the period following the 2008 financial crisis and 51% from the most recent peak in 2011. Quartz watches have taken the brunt of this fall, with their export numbers essentially cut in half, while mechanical watch volumes have remained relatively stable. For newcomers, this is a crucial point: the industry is selling fewer watches overall, but maintaining or increasing value by leaning heavily on mechanical and higher-priced pieces.
Against this backdrop, the section of the report that attracts the most attention each year is the ranking of the top 50 brands by turnover and retail/wholesale performance. Here, the picture becomes clearly two-tiered. A handful of brands are consolidating their dominance and increasing their share of the pie, while a large majority are dealing with shrinking sales or stagnation. In other words, growth is no longer evenly spread; it is increasingly concentrated in a small circle at the top.
As in recent editions, six major names dominate the Swiss watch landscape: Rolex, Cartier, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, Omega and Richard Mille. Two of these heavyweights sit inside large listed groups – Cartier within Richemont and Omega within the Swatch Group – while the remaining four are privately owned. Over the past four to five years, these six have emerged as the clear winners, steadily gaining market share while many group-owned portfolios as a whole have lost ground. The so‑called “Big 4” – Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and Richard Mille – appear remarkably resilient, showing strong performance despite geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainty and cooling demand in some regions. Yet even for them, 2025 was not a year of explosive growth; expansion was modest rather than spectacular.
One particularly eye-catching detail involves Rolex. According to Morgan Stanley’s estimates, Rolex actively managed scarcity in 2025 to keep its aura of desirability intact. The brand is thought to have reduced its volumes by about 2%, to around 1.1 million watches. If these estimates are accurate, it would be the first time in more than two decades that Rolex’s production volumes declined for two consecutive years. That raises a provocative question: is Rolex deliberately pulling back supply to protect exclusivity, or is this a necessary response to broader market headwinds?
When you look more closely at the full Top 50 list, the pain points become clearer. The report suggests that 10 major brands saw their turnover shrink by 15% or more in 2025. This troubled group includes Longines, Swatch, Hamilton, Blancpain and Breguet (all belonging to the Swatch Group); Panerai and Roger Dubuis (within Richemont); Zenith (under LVMH); along with Girard-Perregaux and Franck Muller. These are not obscure names – they are well-known players that, until fairly recently, were seen as pillars of the mid-range and upper-mid-range segments. The fact that they are facing such steep declines could be read as a warning sign for the “squeezed middle” of the industry.
Omega’s trajectory is another revealing case. Once firmly established as the second-largest Swiss watch brand behind Rolex, Omega has now slipped to fifth position in the rankings. This is not solely because Omega’s own sales have softened over time; it is also because its key competitors have grown their revenues faster than the rest of the industry. The result is a relative loss of standing that may fuel debate among collectors and analysts: is Omega merely a victim of shifting demand, or has its strategy failed to keep pace with the new ultra-luxury and hype-driven environment?
Taking all of this into account, the broader picture is one of a sharply polarised market. Morgan Stanley estimates that around 450 watch brands are currently active in Switzerland, yet just four of them account for more than 50% of the market in 2025. Interestingly, previous figures from the same report indicate that these top four brands represented 52.4% in 2024 and 55% in 2024 – numbers that underline an ongoing tendency toward concentration at the top, even if the exact percentages appear somewhat inconsistent in the text. Either way, the direction is clear: a small elite is gaining ever more weight, while many others fight over the remainder.
Another notable element is the evolution of the so‑called “billionaires’ club” – brands generating more than CHF 1 billion in annual revenue. This exclusive circle has shrunk again in 2025. Longines has now fallen below the billion‑franc threshold, following Vacheron Constantin’s exit from the club in 2024. For observers, this raises a pointed question: are we witnessing a temporary correction, or is it becoming structurally harder for brands outside the absolute top tier to cross and maintain that symbolic revenue line?
Perhaps the most dramatic trend highlighted in the report is the ultra-premiumisation of the market. Watches priced above CHF 50,000 made up just 1.4% of total volumes in 2025, yet they accounted for 37% of export value and an astonishing 89% of total growth. In plain language, almost all of the market’s incremental value is being driven by a tiny sliver of extremely expensive timepieces. For enthusiasts and newcomers alike, this begs an uncomfortable question: is the modern Swiss watch industry increasingly building itself around ultra-wealthy clients, while regular buyers are sidelined?
At the same time, the traditional “core range” of Swiss watchmaking – historically dominated by the Swatch Group and often seen as the heart of the accessible luxury segment – is experiencing a rough patch. Despite this, the Swatch Group still plays a commanding role in the entry-level and mid-tier price bands. It is estimated to have sold around 8.8 million watches in 2025, representing about 60% of overall Swiss watch volumes. This illustrates a paradox: volume leadership at lower price points remains concentrated in one group, even as growth and prestige shift to the high and ultra-high end.
There is, however, a bright spot that many casual observers might overlook: high-end independent watchmakers continue to flourish. Brands such as F.P. Journe, H. Moser & Cie. and MB&F are believed to have increased their revenues in 2025, at least according to the estimates used in the report. These independents often produce in very limited numbers, focus on strong design identities and technical creativity, and appeal to collectors looking for originality beyond the big corporate names. Their success suggests that there is still room in the market for innovation and personality, even as big groups tighten their grip.
Another interesting development is the appearance of Christopher Ward in the Top 50 ranking. As one of the few mid-range independent brands to have increased its value, it stands out as something of an exception to the broader pressure on mid-tier players. This may signal that a smart mix of online-first distribution, strong value-for-money positioning and distinctive designs can still generate growth, even in a polarised environment. But it also prompts a challenging question: are brands like Christopher Ward rare outliers, or early indicators of a different business model that could reshape the middle of the market?
For those who want to dive deeper into the numbers, the original report credits Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult as the source of all estimates, noting that figures were not directly provided by the brands themselves. That in itself is a subtle reminder: we are dealing with carefully researched approximations, not official company disclosures. Still, the trends they reveal – contraction, polarisation, ultra-premiumisation and the resilience of a select few – are too consistent to ignore.
So, here’s the provocative question to end on: is this new era of concentrated power and ultra-expensive watches a natural evolution of the Swiss watch industry, or a dangerous imbalance that could harm its long-term diversity and creativity? Do you see the dominance of the Big 4 and the rise of ultra-high-end pricing as a positive sign of brand strength, or as a warning that the market is becoming inaccessible and brittle? Share where you stand – do you agree with this interpretation of the data, or do you think the situation is being exaggerated?
