Luxury Lifestyle

The aspiration of consumers to luxury brings to the Swiss watch manufacturers fantastical profits, and now there is a new threshold of extravagance – watches which cost more than 100000 dollars. Franсois-Henry Bennahmias, Audemars Piguet’s executive director, asserts that the company sells much more watches which cost exceeds 100000 dollars, than the last year.
Experts state that there are no reasons for disappearance of this trend. The segment of premium-class watches has shown twice greater growth of sales. Now the basic problem of the companies is increase in volumes of production: for example, Patek Philippe makes 38000 watches annually, Jaeger-LeCoultre – about 50000, and Rolex - more than 500000 watches per year. «Demand is simply improbable», says Jerome Lambert, executive director of Jaeger-LeCoultre. «Buyers are ready to wait for two years to get the watch they want».
Severin Wunderman, the owner of Corum company says that his company has sold 22 watches which cost more than 1 million dollars for first half of 2007, and nine have been sold in Russia, five - in Southeast Asia, three - in India and on Middle East and only two watches - in the USA.