In 2022, the Deloitte Swiss Watch Industry Study predicted that the future of watchmaking lay in the hands of women. Two years later, the second of Deloitte’s 2024 Spotlight series of deep-dive reports takes a broadranging look at the current relationship between the watch industry and its female audience.
For this second Spotlight, Deloitte has collaborated with an external organisation in order to bring added dimension to its consumer study. Co-authoring the Deloitte Swiss Watch Industry Insights 2024: Spotlight on the female market is Watch Femme, a Swiss non-profit association dedicated to promoting and strengthening the voices of women in the watch world.
In addition to the insights derived from Deloitte’s 6,000-strong consumer survey over 12 key watch markets, Watch Femme brings its years of industry experience and analysis. Augmenting the Deloitte consumer insights are the concentrated perspectives of the Watch Femme community, composed of industry professionals, watch enthusiasts and seasoned collectors. This dual-source dataset represents the most complete and multifaceted undertaking to date that addresses the complex and high-potential topic of female watch consumers and related questions.
What are commonalities and divergences between the purchasing behaviours of male watch consumers and female watch consumers? What are the most-overlooked entry points to accessing a demographic that makes up half the world’s population? How can differences in audience geography, age group and culture help brands to shape their strategy towards female watch consumers for greater effect? This Spotlight puts over a decade of Deloitte’s industry and consumer research and data through new filters, offering fresh views on the above conundrums.
With the resources and reach of Watch Femme, this Spotlight integrates insider analyses and expert takes that would previously only have existed in the closed ecosystem of industry event panel discussions or niche enthusiast platforms.
The Rise of Female Watch Purchasing
Market dynamics are rapidly shifting with the increase of female watch consumers, with unprecedented levels of product knowledge, who purchase for themselves. At the same time, smartwatches are outpacing traditional timepieces in the limited real estate of the wrist. In 2024, 33% of women reported only wearing smartwatches, compared to 18% in 2020. This leaves room for traditional watch retail spaces to incorporate smartwatches in their product offering, capture more female customers and cross-sell in order to capitalise on this trend. Among women who expressed interest in purchasing a watch in 2024, 66% of them indicated that they intended to buy a watch for themselves, and 32% said they would buy a watch as a gift. In comparison, 27% of men in 2024 reported their intention to buy a watch for gifting purposes.
Women surveyed in 2024 are also allocating more of their budget to timepieces, with almost 40% of respondents indicating they would spend between $501 and $5,000 on a watch. In 2023, that figure was at 30%, marking a strong increase in women who are willing to spend more on watches than they did before.
The Gender Issue
In line with the global trend towards de-emphasising gender categories in consumer products and cultural discourse, gender-free watches are gaining in appeal amongst female watch consumers. In leading markets, Deloitte’s consumer data shows that women are increasingly choosing watches that are not specifically targeted towards their gender, with female respondents from Hong Kong (42%), Italy (30%) and Japan (30%) indicaXng their preference for gender-free models.
From the perspective of an informed audience, as polled by Watch Femme, watch advertising has some distance to go before it addresses this consumer preference. A majority of respondents (85%) said that the watches advertised to women did not reflect the watches that women actually wore. Additionally, open-ended responses were collected that suggested the practice of gender categorising watches led to a qualitatively poorer experience for consumers in watch boutiques who reported being made to feel pigeonholed by their gender in their interactions with boutique assistants.
“Women remain underrepresented and insufficiently targeted. This is something the industry needs to address fast, as women are redefining the luxury watch market with an increasing demand for pieces that blend technical innovation and timeless elegance. Today’s female clients seek more than just accessories; they are investing in lasting value and personal expression through fine timepieces. With the gender aspect not playing an important role for most female clients when choosing a watch, this means that there is a lot of untapped potential for growth,” says Karine Szegedi, Consumer and Luxury Goods Industry Leader at Deloitte Switzerland.
Interviews across a range of watch brand CEOs also indicate a growing trend towards removing gender labels on watches, although the question remains as to how this may be practically implemented without a complete overhaul of existing inventory and retail systems.
A Room of Her Own
The retail experience continues to preoccupy the watch world across all its sectors, from consumers to brands. In 2024, the popularity of online shopping follows the trend set by previous years, as 47% of all consumers report a preference for online purchasing compared to buying in physical boutiques. Looking at women alone, 48% prefer buying online in 2024, compared to a marked preference in 2020 for shopping in physical boutiques (64%).
When surveying Watch Femme’s audience of seasoned collectors, industry professionals and watch enthusiasts, a startling 80% of respondents indicated that men and women do not have the same consumer experience in boutiques. Further elaboration was supplied in the open-ended fields, with respondents highlighting the difference in treatment that made shopping in watch boutiques less enjoyable for women. These observations provide clear and detailed feedback about how the retail experience can be improved for female watch consumers and strengthen the brand-consumer relationship.
“We knew at the very outset that we wanted to deliver data-driven insights that are impactful, that are actionable, and that inspire the watch industry to engage in effective dialogue with its female audience,” says Suzanne Wong, Co-founder of Watch Femme. “One of the clearest messages to emerge, after all our months of research and analysis, is that women are poised to change the face of watch appreciation and consumption. What’s more, the sheer variety and range of female watch consumer profiles out there means that we expect all watch brands will be able to derive practical benefit from these insights.”
