Pleasantly surprised

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Pleasantly surprised - Newsletter
2 minutes read
We’re back from Baselworld and a long Easter weekend. Here is a preview of what you can read on WorldTempus this week and in the weeks to come.

Pierre Maudet, the Canton of Geneva’s Minister for Security and the Economy, summed up Baselworld 2016 at a press conference towards the end of the show by borrowing a phrase specific to the neighbouring Canton of Vaud where I live. “Déçu en bien” is an oxymoron that translates literally as “positively disappointed” but more comprehensively as “pleasantly surprised”. Based on what I heard at this year’s Baselworld, it’s an expression that hits the nail on the head.

« Ce mois-ci, gagnez une montre Eterna pour dames »

The February export figures published by the Swiss Watch Industry Federation did not make for great reading, as exports continued to decline. Unofficial forecasts ranged from stagnation until the end of 2017 in the worst case to low single-digit growth this year at the other end of the scale. The only talk of breaking records this year came from Bulgari, which presented the world’s thinnest minute repeater.

Whether consciously or not, the industry seems to be concentrating on its core expertise. After the last-minute smart watch rush last year, there were few notable smart watch launches at the show, the surprise (and equally last-minute) team-up between De Grisogono and Samsung being the notable exception. Instead we saw important base calibre launches from Carl F. Bucherer and Glashütte and huge competition on price – see David Chokron’s article for more details

You will get a better idea of the state of the industry, the latest collections and future trends over the next few weeks as we write-up our hours of interviews and sift through countless press kits. In the meantime you can take a wander beyond Basel with a look at the latest IWC movement in a redesigned Ingenieur, quietly launched at Goodwood in the UK in the middle of Baselworld, and get a detailed overview of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s tourbillon developments over the years with the help of Stéphane Belmont later this week. 

Our 15 days of competitions during Baselworld come to a close at midnight tonight, which is your last chance to win a bottle of champagne from our friends at Infinite 8 and our monthly competition to win a watch from Ernest Borel’s Jules Borel collection. A new watch will be up for grabs as of Friday this week.

We also start a series of articles that look back through the WorldTempus articles. Over the next months we will be publishing an article from each year of our 15-year existence on the web, starting today with an article dating back to 2001, when Patek Philippe launched its Skymoon Tourbillon.

 

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