Found at our friends DWC site - Real Costs for Swiss Watches

This was found at DWC and I thought that those who don't visit there, you are missing some stuff BTW, might want to see it too:

From SCM64: http://www.thedivewatchconnection.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=877
___________________________________
We are all aware that SWATCH may do some crazy shit with their movements. And the recent interview with the Swatch CEO seemed to indicate that it was not just ebuaches, but movements. Nada, zippo for
anyone else.

This thread, while very dry even by WUS standards, has some very very insightful and detailed information on volumes, prices etc., relative to the current market and how such a move by SWATCH could affect the industry. Good stats on Swiss v Japan from a market and export perspective.

Lysanderxiii has some serious sources based on the details he dishes. I found it pretty interesting. A snippet....

In 2009 (through Nov), Switzerland exported 972,159 uncased mechanical movements, around 75% of these were produced by ETA, at an average wholesale price of CHF 93 each.

Almost 85% of the 3,386,310 complete watches exported from Switzerland in 2009 (through Nov) had ETA or an ETA based movements in them. The average cost of a Swiss watch? CHF 2,355.


http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?p=2579910#poststop

I have heard about this issue !..It's REALLY intriguing ! So is ETA going to stop
giving movements or parts to many watch companies out there ?..Will many companies
just have to get movements from other manufactures ? Whether it be Swiss, Japanese,
German, Russian, Chinese etc..Maybe this will help companies go back to building
some of their own movements ! Imagine if more companies made their own watch
parts and movements (like Seiko) !..That would be cool !..I know it might be VERY
hard at first for these companies..However, it could also be good in the long run !

This is the new reality.
Watch mark ups are staggering.

AtomicTom wrote:

I have heard about this issue !..It's REALLY intriguing ! So is ETA going to stop
giving movements or parts to many watch companies out there ?..Will many companies
just have to get movements from other manufactures ? Whether it be Swiss, Japanese,
German, Russian, Chinese etc..Maybe this will help companies go back to building
some of their own movements ! Imagine if more companies made their own watch
parts and movements (like Seiko) !..That would be cool !..I know it might be VERY
hard at first for these companies..However, it could also be good in the long run !

They announced that they would cease doing parts some time ago. Recently they announced a major change in that they said they would no longer be providing movements at all.

The original announcement is why many companies put money into making their own movements within the past couple of years. Its at the root of why TAG lied about having developed their own in-house automatic movement recently when in fact it is a rebagged Seiko movement. Many of the non-Swatch companies are in a real bind because all they've been doing for decades is casing up Eta movements.

The real story in the post I shared is that the average Eta movement that is exported costs 90some Swiss Francs and the average Swiss watch costs somewhere north of 2000 Swiss Francs. As Boscoe said, "Watch mark ups are staggering."

Fantastic information Doc !!!!! So do you think it's good that these
other watch companies finally remember how to make there own watch
movements again ?..Will it be good for them as well as the consumer in the
future ?..Thanks.

One never really knows, and there are a lot of variables in pricing. I have read that some watch movement costs represent as little as 3-5% of the cost of the watch. That may be on the low side on average if I were to guess.

Heard Lior say SWI was developing their own movement on SNBC yesterday.

merichar wrote:

One never really knows, and there are a lot of variables in pricing. I have read that some watch movement costs represent as little as 3-5% of the cost of the watch. That may be on the low side on average if I were to guess.

Very true Mark ! That is astonishing that the watch movements only make up
3-5% of the watch cost ! ..Very mysterious ! ..Thank you for that information !