As the Swiss struggle, Seiko continues to soar

Jamie Weiss

Even those passingly familiar with the watch industry might be aware that it’s supposedly having something of a tough time. As Time+Tide reported back in April, there was a somewhat ominous undercurrent felt at Watches and Wonders Geneva: despite a solid slate of releases at the fair, many brands are struggling for sales right now. In between the Trump tariffs (a big topic of discussion on the ground in Geneva), China’s economic woes and an overinflated watch market continuing to correct post-COVID, there’s been plenty of bloodletting for Switzerland’s luxury watchmakers over the last 12 months.

As WatchPro reports, Swatch Group saw sales decline by 12.2% to CHF 6.7 billion in FY24, Richemont’s Specialist Watchmakers also dropped by 13% for the 12 months ending March 31, 2025 and LVMH’s Watch and Jewelry Group sales also fell by 3% in 2024, “with jewelry performing significantly better than watches”. Rolex, being privately owned, doesn’t publish financial information, but it’s understood that it’s one of only a few Swiss watchmakers doing OK at the moment.

However, across the globe, Japan’s pre-eminent watchmaker Seiko has been quietly seeing sales rise. Seiko Group Corporation has revealed that, for the 12 months from April 2024 to March 2025, its global watch sales rose by 11.7% to JP¥ 175.9 billion (US$1.22 billion). WatchPro explains that this growth was driven by a surge in international sales due to the weakness of the Japanese yen, with worldwide revenue from both Grand Seiko and Seiko having risen by around 15% while sales in Japan dropped by 1% for Seiko and by 13% for Grand Seiko.

Seiko Corporation says that, while Grand Seiko has been “struggling for the past two years” like many luxury watchmakers in its segment, it’s still tracking upwards.

“Since it became an independent brand back in 2017, Grand Seiko has continued to grow both its domestic and international sales steadily year after year,” they related alongside their latest financial results report, adding: “We are aware that some Swiss brands with sales volumes similar to GS have suffered a sales decline over the past two years, but we believe GS can still continue to grow.”

It’s confident stuff from Seiko, but the proof’s in the pudding. Without glazing GS any more than we already do, it doesn’t surprise me to hear that the brand is continuing to see sales growth: year after year, they continue to listen to their fans and offer technically impressive, aesthetically appealing and relatively competitively-priced timepieces. Their flagship 2025 release, the U.F.A. Ice Forest SLGB003, is emblematic of this: an on-trend 37mm diameter, their first-ever micro-adjustment and the most accurate watch movement powered by a mainspring currently on the market, it’s an utterly Swiss-embarrassing timepiece.

But Seiko’s good fortunes aren’t just down to watches, either. Late last year, I wrote an article explaining that while strong watch sales are certainly boosting the Seiko Group’s bottom line, it’s an extremely diversified business with subsidiaries that do everything from operating department stores to making telescopes to payment settlement, artificial intelligence and car sharing. Yet the point still stands: while some Swiss watchmakers are reporting a decline in sales, Seiko/Grand Seiko sales are rising.

Yet I think there’s something else worth keeping in mind when considering the current narrative that the (Swiss) watch industry is struggling. Last week, the ever-insightful @kingflum posted an interesting read on his ScrewDownCrown newsletter discussing best-selling author Morgan Housel’s concept of “expectations debt”. In short, it’s the idea that when we achieve extraordinary success, we create a psychological liability that must be repaid before we can feel joy again.

How does this apply to the watch industry? Well, the argument Mr. Flum posits is that after a few years of massive growth, the industry has got used to massive (and, reading between the lines here, unsustainable) success… And now that the heat’s coming off things, collectors and brands alike are feeling unrealistically disappointed.

“The watch industry grew during and after the pandemic, and what came with this rapid growth was a rewiring of consumer psychology,” he contends.

“Suddenly, buying a steel sports watch wasn’t about enjoying a well-made and reliable watch, but about making 50-100% returns, sometimes overnight. ADs went from being retailers to gatekeepers of a magical money machine… The truth is that collectors spent two years living in a fantasy world where mechanical watches turned into (guaranteed) profit-generating objects. That fantasy created a debt that I reckon will take a while to repay.”

He goes on to show that while Swiss watch exports are down, compared to pre-2019 (or rather “pre-bubble”) levels, things are actually quite good: “by any reasonable and historical measure, the industry is doing alright.” Maybe they’ve just had it too good for too long, and the contractions everyone’s bellyaching about are just a return to where things should be?

Of course, he mentions the idea of 100% returns on some watches, but the secondary market aspect is only part of the story here. While Flum’s on the money when it comes to collector expectations, I think it’s also a reality that it’s only a handful of brands that are aggressively speculated on: there might be lots of people trying to buy Daytonas and Royal Oaks for investment purposes, but that’s perhaps less of a phenomenon when it comes to Carreras and Seamasters, for example.

Still, it’s an intriguing thesis, and one that certainly rings true for me. Time will tell, however – if sales continue to crater and mainstream interest in luxury timepieces continues to fall, maybe the Swiss will have something to be genuinely worried about. At the very least, they might just need to keep an eye on what’s happening over in Japan – the narrative of a tough time falls apart if Seiko continues to sell strongly…