THE ANNUAL 2020 "AGE OF WATCHES" luxury WATCH RANKING
THE TOP 25 WATCH BRANDS
There are a number of arguments around which are the best watch brands in the world. Every individual will have their personal view on this and we are no different but in the analysis below we have made every effort to be impartial in our analysis.
Here, at Age of Watches, we have conducted significant research and developed a model to rank the top watch brands in the world and we want to establish the tradition of refreshing this list every year based of the ever changing luxury watch market. We have taken the 70 largest brands in our analysis in our effort to rank the top 25 luxury was companies in the world. We intend to share our methodology in the near future. One caveat we would like to add is that while we have made every effort to obtain as recent and as accurate data as possible, the possibility of stale and missing data is always possible, specifically due to the notorious secretive watch market where many brands to not share data about themselves.
The rating are based on three main pillars:
- Brand reputation (including time of existence, innovations and awards achieved, movement and complication legacy and clientele)
- Brand Market Share (based on the 2018 figures available)
- Product (including in-house movement production and Complications capabilities)
25. Roger dubuis
Background
Roger Dubuis, is one of the most prestigious Swiss watch brands founded by Roger Dubuis and Carlos Dias in 1995, based in Geneva.
Co-founder Roger Dubuis was born into family of woodsmen but became enamoured with horology as a child after being shown the mechanism of the church clock in his home village on the shores of Lac Leman. After studying at the Geneva watchmaking school, he worked at Longines for almost a decate before joining Patek Philippe in 1966. He spent 14 years there developing high-complication mechanisms. After setting up on his own as a restorer of antique clocks and watches, he joined Franck Muller designer Carlos Dias, in 1995, in establishing the Roger Dubuis brand and after 4 years of development, in 1999, the company unveiled their first calibres developed in-house. In 2001, Roger Dubuis built his manufacture in Meyrin, on the outskirts of Geneva and in 2005 the famous Excalibur collection was launched, equipped with a Double Tourbillion Skeleton movement, an innovation in the watchmaking industry. The brand became known for it’s production of limited edition watches which were usually limited to 8, 28 or 88 timepieces. Roger Dubuis calibres are made of different traditional materials in watchmaking such as gold, diamonds, and titanium, as well as new materials such as carbon, ceramic and cobalt. It was also able to qualify for the prestigious Geneva Seal, one of the industries most difficult classifications to obtain. It counted Sylvester Stallone and Gerard Butler was its celebrity customers. The main movements produced by Roger Dubuis are:
- RD820SQ Automatic skeleton watch with micro-rotor
- RD505SQ Single Flying Tourbillon
- RD01SQ Skeleton double flying tourbillon
- RD101 Quatuor, with four sprung balances
- RD103SQ Double sprung balances with differential The first Roger Dubuis movement co-created in partnership with Lamborghini Squadra Corse
Co-founder Dubuis sold 60 per cent of the company to the Richemont group in 2008, which bought the remaining shares from another investor in January 2016. Mr Dubuis passed away in October 2017.
Roger Dubuis started collaborations with Lamborghini Squardra Corse and Pirelli is 2017 creating Lamborghini inspired watches, using materials used by Lamborghini cars, and Pirelli inspired timepieces, featuring rubber inlays from certified Pirelli tyres.
Scoring
Overall Rank: 25th
Segment: Ultra Luxury Watches (Segment 7)
Overall Rank Components:
· Historical Reputation Rank: 27th
· Market Share: 34th
· Product: 7th
24. bulgari
Background
Bulgari, also known was Bvlgari, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and retailers of luxury products. Bulgari was established on Via Sistina in Rome in 1884 by Greek immigrant silverman Giorgios Bulgaris. Over the decades, the Bulgari generations defined a distinctive style made of vibrant colour combinations, exquisitely balanced volumes and unmistakable motifs that pay homage to the Roman roots of the company. While always revering its cultural legacy, Bulgari introduced innovations that rewrote the rules of the jewellery universe and launched new trends that stood out as icons of contemporary design.
During the 1940s, Bulgari introduced their first timepiece, the snake-watch, which quickly became an unmistakable attribute of jewel-watches. In the 1960s Bulgari’s clientele included Italian nobility, South American political figure Evita Peron, American businessmen, like Nelson Rockefeller and Woolworth’s founder Samuel Henry Kress, and the U.S. Ambassador to Italy Clare Boothe Luce. In the 1970s Bulgari opened its first international store in New York, and later in Paris, Geneva and Monte Carlo. Bulgari re launched the snake-watch with the “Tubogas”, a flexible elastic gold bracelet entirely hand-made. In 1977, Bulgari saw the creation of the it’s first major collection of timepieces, the Bulgari Bulgari, with a double engraved logo on the perfect cylindrical section, which became the company’s most recognized and highest selling watch. In the 1980s, Bulgari remained in the high position of the jewelry market, expanding itself by opening several other stores throughout the world: Munich, London, Milan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.
Most of the Bulgari watches have more then 200 pieces, some of which are 0,3mm, which demands extremely professional knowledge and skills of the master watchmaker. Bulgari is one of the few watch manufacturers able to produce timepieces with high-complicated movements. The Bulgari watches are made in the heart of the “watch valley” in Switzerland and are subject to the toughest tests to insure the highest standards of quality of their movements. Bulgari’s strategy of continuous search of perfection, technological development, spiritual beauty and original style led this company to be one of the finest and top selling watch-building companies in the world.
Scoring
Overall Rank: 24th
Segment: Ultra Luxury Watches (Segment 7)
Overall Rank Components:
· Historical Reputation Rank: 20th
· Market Share: 37th
· Product: 33rd
23. RICHARD MILLE
Background
Richard Mille is a Swiss high end luxury watchmaking brand based in the town of Les Breuleux in the Canton of Jura Swtizerland at an altitude of 1,038 meters above sea levels. It was founded in 2001 by Dominique Guenat and Richard Mille. Richard Mille studied marketing and worked in the watchmaking industry for Finhor, Mantra (which includes brands such as Yema and Cupillard Rieme) and Mauboussin. In 2001, Richard Mille and his friend Dominic Guenat, the owner of Guenat S.A. Montres Valgine, launched the Richard Mille brand as equal partners with the help of watch supplier Renaud et Papi and watch brand Audemars Piguet, who became a shareholder in 2007. The brand concept combined the worlds of cars, aeronautics and sailing with the high-tech aspects of innovation, resistant materials and accuracy.
The Richard Mille brand presented its first watch, the RM 001 Tourbillon at Baselworld in 2001, and the and the RM 002 in 2002, a technological development on the first model and the first watch in the history of watchmaking to feature a titanium baseplate. This was followed later that year by the RM 003, a dual time zone tourbillon, and by the RM 004 flyback chronograph in 2003. Richard Mille soon made a name for itself in the luxury and ultra-luxury watch sectors thanks to its innovative materials and technology, joining the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie in 2007. In 2017, Richard Mille and McLaren Automotive signed a 10-year partnership agreement. The RM 11-03 McLaren Automatic Flyback Chronograp, a limited edition of 500 timepieces jointly designed by McLaren design director Rob Melville and Richard Mille engineer Fabrice Namura, is the first product to arise from this union.
Celebrities endorsing the Richard Mille brand include Fernando Alonso, Yohan Blake, Jenson Button, Jackie Chan, Didier Drogba, Roman Grosjean, Sebastian Loeb, John Malkovich, Felipe Massa, Rafael Nadal, Alain Prost, Margot Robbie, Sylvester Stallone, Pharrell Williams and Alexander Zverev.
Scoring
Overall Rank: 23rd
Segment: Ultra Luxury Watches (Segment 7)
Overall Rank Components:
· Historical Reputation Rank: 23rd
· Market Share: 42nd
· Product: 8th
22. CHOPARD
Background
Chopard is a famous Swiss manufacturer and retailer of luxury watches and jewellery jewellery who included clients such as Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The company was founded by Louis-Ulysse Chopard, a Swiss watchmaker who grew up in Sonvilier, a town near Bern. In 1860, he established his L.U.C. manufacturing company in Sonvilier, having observed that it was more profitable to market the finished watch than to just make the mechanical movement. After Louis-Ulysse’s death in 1915, the company was taken over by his son Paul-Louis and grandson Paul-André who relocated to Geneva, enabling the movements made by the company to be certified with the Geneva Seal, a mark applied only to watch movements made in the Canton of Geneva.
Paul-André took over the company in 1943 but in 1963 having no children wishing to continue in the business, he sold it to Karl Scheufele III, a German goldsmith and watchmaker from Pforzheim, who was seeking a watch movement manufacturer exclusively for his own business. In 1974, the Chopard factory moved from the center of Geneva to Meyrin-Geneva and in 1976 the company started making watches that contained its signature free-floating diamond behind sapphire glass. In the 1980s, the company expanded into making sports watches for men and diamond jewellery for women. In 1996, the company established its own complete watch movement manufacturing facility in Fleurier, in the Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel. Prior to that time, all Chopard’s movements had been assembled from third-party components. The movements made in Fleurier were intended for the high-end watches in the Chopard range.
In 2010, the company celebrated its 150th anniversary, by which time the company’s estimated sales were €550 million in total (of which €250 million were from watches) with about 100 stores around the world. In 2014, Chopard recorded sales of CHF800m (US$915m) and had roughly 2,000 employees worldwide, of whom 900 were working in Switzerland. The company produces around 75,000 timepieces and 75,000 jewelleries each year, and is an active member of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH.
Scoring
Overall Rank: 22nd
Segment: Ultra Luxury Watches (Segment 7)
Overall Rank Components:
· Historical Reputation Rank: 20th
· Market Share: 20th
· Product: 25th
21. PIAGET
Background
Piaget SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker and jeweller, part of Richemont Group. Founded in 1874 by Georges Piaget in the village of La Côte-aux-Fées. Piaget was founded as a manufacturer of watch movements but began marketing its own line of watches in the 20th century with a reputation of producing ultra thin movements.
In 1874, Georges Edouard Piaget set up his first workshop on the family farm, situated in the small village of La Côte-aux-Fées in the Swiss Jura mountains. Situated in the Neuchâtel region, the company was dedicated to crafting pocket watches and high-precision clock movements. In 1911, Timothée Piaget, the son of Georges Piaget, took over the family firm and the company’s policy has been to be dedicated to the production of wristwatches ever since. After 1943, under the guidance of the founder’s grandsons Gérald and Valentin Piaget, the Piaget brand has produced its own creations.
Piaget is one of the frontrunners in ultra thin movements. The manual 9P (1960) and automatic 12P (1906), are respectively the thinnest in their category in the world. In 2014, Piaget released the Altiplano 900P which at 3.54mm is the world’s thinnest hand wound mechanical watch. While the P600 tourbillon movement is the thinnest tourbillon movement in the world (3.5mm). Some of the brands awards include:
- “Watch of the Year” in 2000 by Montres Passion to the Emperador model.
- At the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix, the Piaget 1967 watch was awarded the “Design Watch Prize” in 2002 and the Altiplano XL watch won the “Ultra-Flat Watch Prize” in 2003.
- At the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix, Piaget were awarded the Ladies’ Jewellery Watch Prize in 2006, for their Limelight Party model.
- In 2006 the Limelight Party watch was also elected “Most beautiful watch of 2006” by the magazine Vogue Joyas Spain.
- The Piaget Polo Chronograph watch was elected “Watch of the Year 2007” in the Chronograph category by the jury of the French magazine La Revue des Montres.
- “Watch of the Year 2007” by Alam Assaat Wal Moujawharat magazine to the Emperador model.
- The Limelight Party Secret watch was named “Watch of the Year 2007” in the Ladies’ Watch category by the Belgian magazine Passion des Montres.
Scoring
Overall Rank: 21st
Segment: Ultra Luxury Watches (Segment 7)
Overall Rank Components:
· Historical Reputation Rank: 18th
· Market Share: 27th
· Product: 15th