The smartwatch’s coming of age has to be one of the most intriguing subplots in the story of 21st century watchmaking. When Tim Cook announced the first Apple Watch seven years ago, the press was full of Jeremiahs prophesying doom for the Swiss watch industry. Today, the Cupertino-based company is the biggest watchmaker in the world (it outsells the entirety of Switzerland’s watch brands) – but its impact on the traditional watch business has been more nuanced than many early forecasts might have led some to expect.
For one, Apple’s entrance has affected entry-level watch brands far more dramatically than higher-end dial names. For another, a healthy number of consumers don’t see traditional watches and smartwatches as mutually exclusive. Deloitte’s “Swiss Watch Industry Study 2020” reported that “on average approximately 60 per cent of consumers in the markets we surveyed wear either a traditional watch or both a traditional watch and a smartwatch. This is a posit