Coming off a “hype watch”-fueled 2023, luxury Swiss watch giant Rolex is taking a step back with toned-down debuts for 2024, mirroring a watch market that’s returning to normalcy.
The Watches and Wonders trade show, held this week in Geneva, is where the biggest brands in the industry like Rolex, Patek Philippe, and IWC debut their new models for the year. Rolex typically has the marquee slot for debuts at the show and this year offered some of its most popular models with refreshed looks, precious metals, and diamond adornments.
Chief among those models is a new GMT-Master II in stainless steel with a black and gray ceramic bezel that the brand introduced last year with a steel and gold two-tone bracelet. It comes in either a standard Oyster or dressier Jubilee bracelet and will likely carry on the trend of Rolex steel pieces like the previous GMT-Master II and Submariner — being virtually impossible to find at retail locations. If you can find it, the new GMT will start at $10,700, depending on the bracelet.
“The GMT on oyster [bracelet] will likely be the big seller,” said Ross Crane, co-founder and CEO of Subdial, a watch retailer and data provider. “The fact it isn’t so obviously ‘new’ from across a room as the ‘LHD sprite’ (2023 GMT) or celebration oyster perpetuals means I’d expect to see slightly less hype on the secondary market prices in the first 6 months than the LHD, but longer term I expect it will retain it’s appeal more than some of those models.
A surprise was a new Deepsea, Rolex’s most extreme diver watch, in a bold 18K gold case and bracelet with a blue face and bezel. The 44mm watch is on the larger side, but the gold lettering on the dial and bezel give this tool watch a much more luxurious appeal, and the sheer size of it along with the heft of its gold case make it one big Rolex. Dive-rated to 12,800 feet, the new Deapsea will retail for $52,100.
“Easily the most noteworthy new release from Rolex this year is the solid 18k yellow gold Deepsea,” Bob’s Watches CEO Paul Altieri said to Yahoo Finance. “This massive chunk of solid 18k yellow gold (which weighs well over half a pound), with its bright blue lacquer dial and matching blue Cerachrom bezel immediately claims the top spot as Rolex’s most luxurious dive watch.”
Finally, there was a big-time luxury update for the model that Rolex fans salivate for: The Cosmograph Daytona got even more upscale. Rolex added two versions with contrasting mother-of-pearl dials and subdials, along with diamond-encrusted bezels. The two cases are 18K white gold and come with an Oyster bracelet or Oysterflex rubber version. The Daytona on the Oysterflex starts at an eye-watering $61,400, while the bracelet version is $70,100.
While these new watches (and others, including a new 1908 in platinum and Day-Date in new precious metals) are certainly eye-catching, they have not matched the hype of last year’s Rolex reveals, when the Rolex “emoji” Day-Date got all the buzz (and hate).
“I would say the collector community is very underwhelmed overall with the Rolex releases, but that’s OK — the last few years were almost too crazy in terms of super-desirable watches,” watch expert and retailer Eric Wind of Wind Vintage told Yahoo Finance.
“If anyone was complaining last year that Rolex had strayed too far into the circus of color — that The Crown was just having too much fun flitting about — then this year proves that Rolex was always going to return to its quiet place at the center of the horological galaxy,” watch expert and Robb Report editor Allen Farmelo wrote.
There has also been weakness in the secondary market, which is often used as a proxy for the popularity of various luxury watch brands and models. The Bloomberg Subdial Index, which tracks the secondary market using a basket of the most popular watches — like the Rolex Submariner, Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, and Patek Philippe Nautilus — is down 40.4% in the past 24 months, though it has stabilized in the past six months with only a 2% loss.
Rolex, which has likely seen this slowing in the secondary market along with the unavailability of its new models at the retail level, has been pulling levers to get more supply into the hands of its buyers while the market for its watches is still strong. The company introduced its own certified pre-owned program to get more Rolex models with warranties to customers in late 2022, announced plans to boost production with new factories last year, and bought jeweler Bucherer, owner of Tourneau, to boost its retail presence.
It may seem strange that Rolex, estimated to produce 1 million watches a year with $10 billion in sales, is still having problems with supply, though Rolex CEO Jean-Frédéric Dufour told Swiss outlet NZZ on Monday that the good times may not last.
A strong Swiss franc, material costs, and higher interest rates are immediate concerns.
“The increased interest rates are also affecting people’s spending mood, and the geopolitical situation isn’t helping either,” he said.
Rolex’s more subdued 2024 models will still likely be sales hits and investments.
Unsurprisingly, Rolex is against the pure investment model for watches, even though it boosts sales in the new and pre-owned market. “I don’t like it when people compare watches with stocks. This sends the wrong message and is dangerous,” Dufour said.
While they may not like it, Rolex and Dufour will likely see the watchmaker’s new models trade like hot commodities at retail and when they eventually hit the secondary market, with buyers implicitly calculating the ROI on a first-of-its-kind solid gold Deepsea or a new stainless steel GMT.
“Will this return to normalcy make any of these watches easier to get at retail? We will assume a resounding ‘hell no’ to be the obvious answer,” Farmelo quipped.
Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.
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