American dream

It’s easy to forget that the USA wasn’t always the great engine of growth for the global watch industry that it is today. For the first two decades of this century, Swiss watch exports to the US were broadly flat, at around CHF 2 billion per year.

As recently as 2018, exports to America accounted for just 10 percent of the global total. To put that in context, in the same year, the UK received 6 percent of Swiss watch exports. Fast forward to 2025 and the USA’s share has risen to 17 percent of the world total (encouragingly, the UK’s share rose to 7 percent last year).

It is only since 2020 that the USA, comfortably the richest country in the world, appeared to fall in love with horology, leading it to overtake both mainland China and Hong Kong to become the biggest watch market on the planet. So, what changed?

One theory is that it’s down to Asian and Western governments reacting differently to the Covid-19 pandemic. China and Hong Kong did not retreat from their zero-Covid policies until early 2023. Europe and America were booming again by 2021 as less-frightened and fun-starved populations started spending wealth that had built up during lockdowns.

Manufacturers turned their gaze away from China, which had dazzled them until the global financial crisis with an inexorable rise in spending from a cohort of entrepreneurs who were making fortunes from the real estate boom and the rising wealth of the country’s middle class.

America had been starved of attention until the Chinese economic miracle started to stall. Brands didn’t appear to have the bandwidth, production capacity or imagination to look east and west at the same time.

As a result, despite China having 15 times fewer millionaires than the USA in 2015, watch consumption in the world’s most populous nation was almost twice as high.

Brands appeared to wake up to this imbalance in the late 2010s – and it could be argued, was triggered when two of Europe’s largest watch retailers, Bucherer and Watches of Switzerland Group, acquired major American chains. WoSG bought Mayors, a chain with 17 stores in Florida and Georgia, for $105 million in 2017. Bucherer swooped for Tourneau, with 28 showrooms across 10 US states, in 2018.

The vast majority of these 45 stores were anchored by Rolex, which was already the world’s largest luxury watch brand, on 22 percent market share, to the dominator it is today, accounting for 33 percent of Swiss watch sales at retail worldwide.

Bucherer and Watches of Switzerland Group’s acquisitions, and the turbocharged rise of Rolex, are linked in the context of America’s parallel rise. Both groups have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the United States to elevate both their real estate and their teams to European standards. American rivals, many of them sleepy family-owned operations that made a comfortable living running their businesses on the back of relationships at their golf and country clubs, were forced to wake-up. Fast.

Rolex, which was becoming a kingmaker, made it clear it would only work with retailers that matched or exceeded the quality of European operators. Allocations of watches with fast-growing waiting lists were made on the basis of which partners invested most to deliver the highest quality customer experience. Patek Philippe, Omega, Cartier and others exerted similar pressure.

London Jewelers in New York and New Jersey, Razny in Chicago, Long’s in Boston, Govberg in Philadelphia, de Boulle in Texas, Geary’s, Polacheck and Hing Wa Lee in California, Reeds on the Atlantic seaboard, have all risen to the challenge, transforming the retail scene for luxury watches in America from backwater to barnstormer in under a decade.

A new generation of clients and collectors has emerged Stateside, not only buying from prestigious authorised dealers, but also from auction houses and a sophisticated secondary market professionalised by the likes of WatchBox, Crown & Caliber and Analog Shift.

“American watch fans have a real sense of community”

The website Hodinkee emerged as a cheerleader and educator for the watch industry; celebrity collectors like John Mayer and Tom Brady became poster boys. Worn & Wound, and its Windup Watch Fairs, introduced microbrands to a public eager to discover the next big thing from watchmakers with more accessible price points.

From a European vantage point, 2024 and 2025 were sluggish; bogged down by high living costs and political uncertainty. But America kept motoring. According to Luxury Watch Barometer, which aggregates and analyses retail point of sale data, sales last year were up 20 percent, despite the chaos of President Trump’s tariffs. Sales rose by an additional 20 percent in the first quarter of this year.

The difference between the UK and USA markets can be seen in the finances of the publicly-listed Watches of Switzerland Group, which has seen America’s contribution to turnover rise from 24 percent in 2019 to 48 percent in 2025. The business has quadrupled US sales over the past seven years and its revenue per store has leapt by over 60 percent from $10.5 million to $16.8 million.

Christopher Ward has overseen a similar trend. As recently as 2023, its home market of the UK was still the brand’s biggest earner, with sales of £4.7 million compared to America’s £4.6 million. Just two years later, and with the birth of the transformative Bel Canto under its belt, America took the top spot in 2025 with turnover of £19.1 million beating the UK’s £11.7 million.

“The US market is now nudging beyond 50 percent of our business and we expect this mix to continue towards 60 percent as we add more locations to the current showrooms in New York, Dallas, Virginia and Chicago,” says Christopher Ward CEO Mike France.

“Our American audience has a tendency towards higher-priced models, larger cases and bolder colours,” says Mike. “They also become collectors of our watches faster than other territories. The sense of community among watch fans is true of every market but it has evolved faster and is more pronounced in the US.”

There’s no sign that this momentum shift is temporary or cyclical, it appears to be structural. Household incomes are rising far faster in the USA than in Europe, and the population feels sufficiently confident to keep spending.

A virtuous circle is developing, with businesses investing in larger in-country teams, flagship stores and deeper partnerships that improve client experiences. This encourages additional demand, which in turn is being put to work to generate future growth and keep the US bandwagon rolling.

For all the talk of America’s decline, the numbers point to a country whose optimism and can-do attitude are delivering rich rewards for the world’s best watchmakers and their stateside fans.