Known as the "Oscars for the Watch Industry" - The Geneva Haute Horlogerie Salon was launched on January 16 in Switzerland. In the global economic environment is not yet clear in 2011, the Swiss watch industry sales hit a record high, the global watch industry first jumped out of the recession, a strong recovery. This year's Geneva watch show, the new technology complex watch became the first day of focus.
Despite the global economic instability, the Swiss watch industry performed quite well in 2011. According to the latest annual report released by the Swiss watch industry, the watch export quota in the first 11 months of 2011 exceeded the historical record to reach 17.7 billion Swiss francs (18.6 billion U.S. dollars). According to insiders, the Chinese market has a considerable contribution. "According to the forecast, the Swiss watchmaking industry will exceed 19 billion Swiss francs in 2011, exceeding the record of 17 billion Swiss francs hit in 2008." Jean-Daniel Pasche, Chairman of the Swiss Watch Industry Association, told the Swiss media.
This year's Geneva watch show, the thriving Cartier performed well, its classic watch series Cartier Tank released a new version of Tank Anglaise, Cartier CEO Bernard Fornas also known as surprise.
This is just one of many great watches for its four-day Geneva watch show. Since 2009, the Geneva Watch Fair will be extended from the Basel Watch Fair in March the same period from March early to January, completely out of the Basel watch fair sheltered Geneva watch show, to high-quality and limited visitors become able to Basel table rival star exhibition. This year 18 exhibitors watch brand no different from last year, of which 13 brands from Richemont, the remaining five brands are high-quality independent watch brands. Officials expect the number of visitors this year to reach 12,000.
In 2009 the Swiss watch industry entered a depression, but in 2011 and a strong recovery, the most important factor is the timely transfer of the Asian market. Compared with 2010, Switzerland exported 51% of its exports to the Chinese market in 2011, taking up only 3.6 billion Swiss francs in the Hong Kong market, an increase of 29% over the same period of last year. Despite the global gold price spike last year, Swiss watch exports continued to grow 24.3%. "For the Swiss watch, the increase in the gold price will not be an obstacle to sales because it is one of the most stable gold investments." Pasche analysis said.
Richemont, which owns many luxury watch brands, also enjoyed rapid growth last year. For watch sales alone, Richemont achieved sales of 1.17 billion euros in 2011, an increase of nearly 31% from 1.35 billion euros a year earlier.
"The global economy in 2012 was not optimistic and this sense of insecurity made the rich more willing to invest in sophisticated, high-tech models." Steven Forsey, co-founder of GREUBEL FOREY, "First Financial Daily" interview said. At this year's Geneva watch show, there has been a new move at GREUBEL FOREY, a state-of-the-art watch brand. Compared to last year, GF released only the original version of the Platinum Edition as a new product, this year the brand released two new works: the difficult four-body tourbillon flipped to the back of the Quadruple Tourbillon Secret and the first time on the dial to add fashion elements - - Royal Blue Tourbillon 24 Secondes Contemporain has many remarkable points.