2 November

The day in brief

The Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève is showing the 84 timepieces competing for the prizes to be awarded next Saturday, 7 November, at Geneva's Musée d'Art et d'Histoire until 15 November.

In the industry, the Swiss newspaper Blick gathers accounts of the difficulties facing brands and subcontractors, even though Swiss watch exports rose 2.7% to September. Patek Philippe's UK accounts show record sales and falling operating profit, and Chrono24 begins selling new watches from five independent brands.

Among the launches, Louis Erard and Vianney Halter put two automatic calibres in one case, and Nivada Grenchen opens its women's line with the return of the Colorama.

Geneva shows the 84 GPHG contenders ahead of Saturday's ceremony

The 2026 travelling exhibition of the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) has reached Geneva after stops in Mumbai and Bangkok. Opened on 29 October at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, it runs until 15 November and presents the 84 timepieces selected by the GPHG Academy: 78 watches and 6 clocks from 55 brands.

These pieces are competing for 20 prizes, including the Grand Prix de l'Aiguille d'Or. The 26th ceremony takes place on Saturday 7 November at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices and will be streamed live on the GPHG's website from 18:30 Geneva time, 17:30 in Lisbon.

The programme includes free guided tours every day, introductory watchmaking workshops led by the École d'Horlogerie de Genève, talks and activities for younger visitors. The exhibition also features work by students of the HEAD–Genève Chair in Watch Design and the activities of The Watch Library foundation, which is dedicated to preserving watchmaking archives.

Raymond Loretan and Carine Maillard, President and Director of the GPHG Foundation, present the show as part of the institution's mission of "sharing and transmission", bringing these pieces together in a museum open to all.

Find out more on the organisation's website.

Accounts in Blick reveal the difficulties of Swiss watchmaking behind the growth in exports

On 30 October, the journalist Myret Zaki published a report in Blick in which industry professionals describe difficulties that the overall figures do not show. According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, exports rose 2.7% between January and September.

The jeweller Patrick Saegesser, from Crans-Montana, refers to staff reductions at Breitling, Chopard and Montblanc, as well as the hundred or so jobs at risk at Zenith, which the Radar reported on 23 October. He also says that subcontractors in the Jura are running out of orders, with machines at a standstill, and that the retailer Kirchhofer is said to have been on short-time work since March. The article includes no response from these companies.

The consultant Nicolas Rossé places the problem at the base of the pyramid: sales of watches under 200 Swiss francs have fallen from 20 million to 10 million pieces in ten years, and the 300 to 500 franc segment has dropped by about 50%. Over the same period, he estimates that the average export price has risen from about 720 francs in 2015 to more than 1,670. Growth is concentrated above 3,000 francs, led by Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Richard Mille.

Oliver R. Müller of the consultancy LuxeConsult estimates Rolex's 2025 sales at 11 billion francs, above the 6.3 billion for all the brands of Swatch Group combined. The United States has overtaken Hong Kong and mainland China as the top market for Swiss watches, and Müller does not expect Chinese demand to return to pre-pandemic levels.

Find out more on the newspaper's website.

Patek Philippe posts record UK sales, but operating profit falls

The accounts of Patek Philippe's UK subsidiary, reported by WatchPro on 30 October, show sales of £301 million in the financial year ended 31 January 2026, up 11% on the previous year. Operating profit fell 9.4% to £22.1 million and is 27.5% below the peak of £30.5 million reached in the financial year ended January 2023.

The company's own boutique on Bond Street, in London, grew well ahead of the whole: sales of £106 million, up 28.1%, and operating profit of £12.6 million, up 24.8%. The boutique's operating margin is 12%, against 7% for the wholesale and retail business combined.

WatchPro compares these figures with those of Rolex in the UK, including Tudor, with sales of £736.7 million in 2025 and operating profit of £87.1 million, down 10.4%, and with Audemars Piguet, with sales of £105 million, up 29%.

Find out more on the brand's website.

Chrono24 begins selling new watches from five independent brands

Chrono24, a platform known mainly for selling pre-owned watches, has become an official retailer of new watches from five independent brands: Fears, Airain, MAEN, DWISS and Rönkkö, according to WatchPro. The five are gathered in a new category, Independent Brands, with a dedicated space for each brand, where the watches are sold alongside information about its history and way of working.

For the launch, each brand gets a week of prominence on the home page, as well as coverage in Chrono24 Magazine, on social media and in messages sent to users. Tom Beitschall, the company's general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, says independent brands were already on the platform but "have not always been easy to find".

For small brands without an extensive network of sales points, it is one more international distribution channel.

Find out more on the company's website.

Louis Erard and Vianney Halter put two automatic calibres in one case

Presented on 30 October, the Futur Antérieur is a collaboration between Louis Erard and the watchmaker Vianney Halter, inspired by the Antiqua, one of his best-known watches. The steel case, with 67 components, measures 38 mm in diameter, 44 mm from lug to lug and 8.85 mm thick, and has two crowns. Two raised round dials, surrounded by rivets, show the small seconds above and the hours and minutes below.

The technical solution lies inside: two independent Sellita SW100 automatic calibres, one for the hours and minutes and the other just for the small seconds. Each calibre measures 17.2 mm in diameter and 4.8 mm in height and runs at 4 Hz. Because they are independent, each has its own balance and its own mainspring, and the seconds have no mechanical link to the hours. The compromise is having two rates in the same watch, in exchange for an architecture that keeps the two dials apart, as in the watch that served as the reference.

There are two versions, Gold and Silver, each limited to 178 pieces at 4,950 Swiss francs before tax, and a set of both, limited to 78, at 9,900 francs.

Find out more on the brand's website.

Nivada Grenchen opens its women's line with the return of the Colorama

In its centenary year, Nivada Grenchen is relaunching the Colorama, a watch presented in 1965 with interchangeable bezels and straps, protected by a Swiss patent, as the first collection of its women's line. The brand announced it on 30 October and puts it on sale on 12 November.

The 316L steel case with gold-tone IP coating measures 17 mm in diameter and 6.75 mm thick, and the movement is quartz, a Ronda 1042 with hours and minutes only. The novelty lies in the bezel, which clicks on and off in seconds, and in the pendants that allow the watch to be worn around the neck.

The collection comes in Golden Hour versions, with gold bezels, and Color Pop versions, with enamel bezels, each in two sets, at 695 and 895 dollars before tax.

Find out more on the brand's website.

What deserves attention

Saturday brings together in Geneva two indicators of the top of the market: the GPHG ceremony and the start of the Phillips auction, on 7 and 8 November. According to Haute Time, the lead lot is a 1945 Patek Philippe reference 1436, a steel rattrapante chronograph estimated at between two and four million Swiss francs, and Sotheby's is offering, on 8 and 9 November, a George Daniels Millennium from 2001, estimated at between 300,000 and 600,000 francs. The results will show the strength of demand for rare pieces, in a sector in which, according to the accounts in Blick, the base of the pyramid continues to shrink.

Among the launches, Habring² and the SJX website presented on 29 October the Chrono Felix Perpetual "Star", with calibre A11CP, which combines the brand's A11 chronograph with a perpetual calendar module from Dubois-Depraz, in 30 pieces. Alpina, official timekeeper of the Route du Rhum, which set off yesterday from Saint-Malo, is linking two limited series to the race, including a Seastrong Diver Extreme Automatic in 313 pieces.