Between 2019 and 2023, Hermès’ watch division was the fastest growing watchmaker in the Swiss industry with 32% growth per annum, according to Vontobel, a private banking and investment management group in Zurich.
Even though Hermès Horloger’s sales declined in 2024, and presumably 2025 (results are forthcoming), amid challenging market conditions, including an ongoing luxury slowdown in China, last year the brand ranked no. 13 on Morgan Stanley’s list of the watch industry’s top 50 brands with an estimated turnover of 550 million Swiss francs. Over the past decade, the brand has quietly built one of the industry’s most credible and fast-growing watch divisions.
“Hermès chose more than 20 years ago to gear up its watch collection and to consider it a product category of its own and not simply as an accessory within the brand’s product offering,” Oliver R. Müller, founder of LuxeConsult, a watch consultancy in Aubonne, Switzerland, and co-author of the Morgan Stanley report, tells Worldtempus. “It substantially reduced its offer on entry price quartz watches and massively built up its mechanical product offering. To secure the sourcing, but also to capture some of its legitimacy, the brand took a minority stake in Vaucher, a premium manufacturer of mechanical watch movements and sister company of the Parmigiani brand.
“At the same time, the brand’s volume was reduced by two-thirds and the products were made much coherent with the Parisian maison’s DNA, which is about craftsmanship,” Müller adds. “These skills are being expressed through very refined dials but also high-end mechanical complications such as a tourbillon or a minute repeater. Does all this make Hermès part of the A league? Over time it will — so far, the brand has gained a lot of credibility.”
One way Hermès maintains that credibility is through its commitment to vertical integration. In July, the brand announced that it was strengthening its production capacity by expanding its watchmaking site in Le Noirmont in the Swiss Jura. The facility currently produces watch cases and dials. Upon its expected completion in 2028, the building, which will be equipped with solar panels, a rainwater recovery system and a green roof, will occupy 11,000 square meters and accommodate around 100 new employees.
In addition to Vaucher Manufacture in Fleurier and the Noirmont manufacture, the brand also owns a leather strap production and case assembly site in Brügg in the Bern canton. “Hermès Horloger is thus consolidating its control over its value chain, enabling it to respond to the development of bold creations showcasing exceptional craftsmanship — as notably exemplified by the Hermès H08 and Hermès Cut collections as well as the Arceau Le temps suspendu and Arceau Le temps voyageur watches,” said a brand statement.
Even as the industry struggles to right itself in the wake of the ongoing slowdown, Hermès’s prospects are, by all accounts, looking up. “It is important to note that on a mid-term comparison, the growth is still remarkable — around +200% on a 5-year track,” Müller says. “The challenge for Hermès is now to prove that the brand is seen as being trustworthy for clients, meaning the value retention is there on the long-term.”
For a brand that’s neither Rolex nor “everyone else,” Hermès has methodically carved out a third path in Swiss watchmaking built on mechanical credibility, vertical integration and a distinctly Parisian idea of craft.
