The Football World Cup starts next week in Canada, Mexico, and USA. And yesterday, on June 2, we published an exclusive interview with Didier Deschamps, head coach of the France national football team, and a Hublot ambassador. Just like the team’s captain Kylian Mbappé. France is the current top-ranked team in the world – will they deliver this year? France will play its first game, against Senegal, on June 16, and on July 19 we will know who the winner is.
Until the end of 2025, Hublot was a partner of the World Cup – but this year there is no watch sponsor or timing partner of the event! The only thing close to this is Axia, who makes the FIFA World Cup 2026™ Official Licensed Watches, which flaunt the national colors of each country. Axia who? That was my question as well, last week. What sounds like a company selling insurance policies or porridge is a watch brand founded by New Jersey-based John Kanaras back in 2018. It makes commemorative Swiss Made automatic watches for, for instance, universities, sporting events, companies and others. They start around 600 CHF.
But why did no Swiss watch brand pick up the baton after Hublot? After all, the FIFA World Cup is arguably the largest, most-watched single-sport event in the world. It seems to me like with cycling some years ago. Nobody was interested, now everybody wants a piece of that cake. Breitling is at least sponsoring the Norwegian blonde giant Erling Haaland, who is the star goal striker of one of the great surprises – it is the first time that Norway qualified for the World Cup since 1998. And just to mention one more, a certain Argentinian playing his sixth World Cup has collaborated for an open-worked Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Leo Messi edition. So yes, there are many interesting personal horological endorsements in the world of football. But the main overall is up for grabs.
Another thing on my mind are the recently released stats and figures. Still not sure quite to make of it, but if I put my rose-colored glasses on, it doesn’t look too bad, does it? Yes, there are still ongoing geopolitical problems in the world. But on May 29 Richemont published its FY 2026 annual report, and according to Chairman Johann Rupert, the group delivered a “solid performance for the financial year that ended 31 March 2026.” Overall sales were up with 11 % at constant exchange rates, and after a challenging 24-month period the Group’s Specialist Watchmakers were “up modestly” (down-4% at actual exchange rates).
And the Swiss Watch Federation, who released its latest stats on June 2, talks about a 3.9-percent cumulative drop in Swiss Watch exports since the beginning of 2026. Yes, we are also talking about a 16.6 % decline in exports compared with April 2025. But hang on: This is mainly because US dropped 56% – but that is compared with a period when it spiked thanks to announcements about coming tariffs. So, my take rather than crying wolf is to point out the figures compared with 2024. This paints a very different picture: US, France, and Singapore are actually up, and both China’s and Hong Kong’s freefall is slowing down.
So, with this in mind, let’s hope the summer will continue in a positive direction, and let’s hope for a great World Cup. Who I am rooting for? Well, since I am Swedish, based in Switzerland since 2012, and have married into a French family, I will have a hectic schedule.
