How has the last year been for Maurice Lacroix?
It was a really good year. We grew sales and margins and have been turning a profit for four years in a row now. So, we are really financially stable. When you look at last year’s Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) figures, we are playing in two segments – The first is the CHF 200 to CHF 500 segment, which was down -21.3% in terms of value. We are also in the CHF 500 to CHF 3,000 range, which was also down -8.9%, but we saw positive growth in both segments. So, we took market share last year. It was still tough, however, with Covid in 2021 and 2022 a recovery year, but it was really good and we saw growth in all our markets. The US, Asia, and Europe were good, but it was tough, especially in the last quarter of the year with inflation here in Switzerland at 3% and in Germany at 10%, not to mention the energy crisis.
Talking of the energy crisis, do you have business in Russia?
We had business. Russia was amongst our top ten markets and it was a sizeable chuck of our turnover, it wasn’t the biggest but it was an important chunk and it has just gone, so if you take that into consideration, our performance was even better.
In terms of timepieces, what shone the brightest last year?
#tide! In the first year, it became 20% of our volume, and actually, as we launched it in March and started deliveries in June, that is only six months. It was the first time we had such a success with a new collection.
Will you continue to focus on the #tide?
We just launched the AIKON #tide Mahindra, but it is just like the Aikon, for example. We launched it in 2016 in quartz, then mechanical in 2018, which is now really strong, and it has only been four or five years, so it is still too early to say that we put the focus on another collection. We did the Pontos last year, but we still need to put 80% of the focus on the Aikon, and #tide is a nice extension of that. But we will have collaborations with FIBA, King of the Courts, and the Redbull Dance your style, and in the summer, there will be a big focus on the automatic base with a new launch in Croatia.
Tell me more about Red Bull Dance Your Style?
We started a partnership last year and there are about 20 events internationally, not to mention all the local and national competitions, and the good thing is that they almost all happen in the markets where we have distribution. It is the same thing for basketball and the King of the Courts. So, we always try to make a match. And then, of course, we did it specifically for #tide because it is young and urban, so it makes sense.
For your Friends of the Brand, how is this going?
There are no new additions this year. We launched during Covid, so now it is about communicating more. Because at the end of the day, you can have 20, 50, or 100 friends, but it is what you do with them that counts. We had a “Friends of the Brand” Day with many of them last month at the Manufacture. The objective is to do more projects, it is not about them giving us their face and their wrist in exchange for money, it is about what we can do together. They are all part of our family and these are relationships that are built on trust, respect, and mutual understanding. We are in it for the good times and the bad times, so when they get injured, we stick by them. Nobody has a straight-line beautiful story with everything just perfect. There are bumps, and sometimes it is these bumps that are interesting for our community too.
