Tissot

In luxury watches, revenues are up but volumes are down, creating new winners, losers, opportunities and threats, writes Robin Swithinbank.

The luxury watch market is facing challenges that are unlikely to be resolved any time soon, says Luca Solca.

The results will likely spark concern that the watch rebound is fading.

Swatch Group AG plans to introduce three smartwatches this year, as the Swiss company jostles with Apple Inc. and TAG Heuer in the market for wearable devices that do more than tell time.

Swatch Group expects to launch a smartwatch that can be used to make payments in Switzerland next spring, chief executive Nick Hayek said in an interview.

Tissot SA will become the first official timekeeper of the National Basketball Association in a six-year sponsorship valued at $200 million, according to a person familiar with terms of the deal.

Swatch Group AG’s Tissot T-Touch Expert Solar watch has a compass, tells the altitude and runs on solar power. It costs $1,250 — more than three times the smartwatch Apple Inc. unveiled yesterday, putting it squarely in the crosshairs of the tech giant’s latest gizmo.

The Savigny Luxury Index fell 2.2 percent this month, as the standoff between the West and Russia over its annexation of Crimea sparked fears of a drop in luxury goods sales to valuable Russian tourists.

The Savigny Luxury Index (“SLI”) leapt by 6.7 percent this month, overperforming the MSCI World Index (“MSCI”) by almost six percentage points, as luxury sector investors seem to have received the reassuring they needed from a number of positive signals, reports Pierre Mallevays of Savigny Partners.