Corinne Gretler Zurich
ROLEX’S younger sibling is coming of age. Tudor, a sportier brand that Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf trademarked in 1926, planned to enter Japan after returning to the UK and the US in the past two years, Philippe Peverelli, who has led the brand since 2010, said.
The label may pose a threat to the makers of Longines, TAG Heuer and Baume & Mercier as it sheds decades of dormancy and benefits from the support of the foundation that owns Rolex, Switzerland’s top-selling watch brand.
Priced at about $2 000 to $5 000 (R23 623 to R59 058), Tudor is a gateway to a generation of consumers that might not purchase a Rolex, which start at about Sf4 600 (R56 647).
“We’ve never been so young,” Peverelli said at the Baselworld watch and jewellry fair, which ended yesterday. “Today, we try to make our own watches with our own designs. We need to have our own personality. Before we were an underbrand. We are starting to have a real life.”
The label has introduced its first watches with mechanisms that were made in-house. That was a first step in reducing dependence on components bought from Swatch Group’s ETA unit, which makes components for most Swiss watches.
Rolex founder Wilsdorf began putting the Tudor name on watch dials in the 1930s, intending to create a less expensive but reliable alternative to his main brand. Production expanded after World War II, when Tudor was founded as a separate company.
However, Tudor exited the US and UK after testing those markets. The watchmaker then focused on China in the 1960s.
The offshoot’s pricing in comparison to its older sibling has led some watch collectors to call it “the poor man’s Rolex”.
A 1952 ad featured a workman operating a pneumatic drill wearing the watch, and a slogan once said the timepiece might fit you if your “aspirations are higher than your bank balance”.
The label probably had sales of about Sf250 million in 2013, Rene Weber, an analyst at Bank Vontobel in Zurich, said. That would be about 5 percent of Geneva-based Rolex’s total revenue of Sf4.6 billion, he estimates.
The closely held company does not publish financial information. Tudor’s expansion adds to three major challenges Swiss watchmakers face this year.
The surge in the franc has made it harder to export, Apple is set to introduce its smartwatch next month and a slump in Chinese demand is lingering due to a campaign against extravagance among government officials. –
Bloomberg