Swiss watch exports to US take tumble amid high tariffs

Customs duties of 39% on Swiss products imported into the United States came into force on August 7. Keystone-SDA

Swiss watch exports went into a tailspin in August, after surging in July in response to tariffs imposed by the United States. Shipments of timepieces to the US plummeted by almost a quarter, following a 45% jump in July.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Overall, Swiss watch exports fell by 16.5% in monthly terms to CHF1.64 billion ($2.08 billion), according to statistics published on Thursday by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. Over the first eight months of the year, the drop was 1%.

Customs duties of 39% on Swiss products imported into the United States came into force on August 7. In anticipation of their introduction, watch brands experienced a surge in demand in July in the US. But in August, shipments to this market plummeted by 24%, to CHF245.1 million. The United States remains the sector’s main market, with a share of around 15%.

This is by far the sharpest decline suffered by any market in August. Hong Kong and China continue to dominate the statistics, recording declines of 13% to CHF116 million and 36% to CHF115.3 million, respectively. These two markets each account for 7% of export volumes. Among the other main markets for Swiss watchmaking, the United Kingdom (-20.5%), Japan (-22.5%) and Singapore (-14.2%) failed to raise their game in a global economic slump.

The negative trend affected all materials, in terms of both volume and number of pieces, according to the federation. Declines were well in excess of 10%, and in some cases as much as 20%, with the “other materials” category down by as much as 30.6% in terms of pieces delivered.

Steel watches limited the damage, with the number of pieces exported falling by “only” 6.9% to 574,100 units. Volumes in francs, however, fell by nearly 14% to CHF524.3 million for this category. In “precious metals”, the federation noted a plunge of 17.3% to CHF617.9 million.

What is your opinion? Join the debate:

Translated from French with DeepL/gw

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail].