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Openwork: Inside the Watch Industry
Yes, More Price Increases – Rolex, AP, Tudor, and Why the US Is Getting Hit Harder Than Europe – Episode 63
00:35:45
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- [00:01]
A
AP for their part, has about a 5% increase.
- [00:04]
B
Hey, I'm just curious, from an operational standpoint, do you have to be allocated a price increase by ap?
- [00:11]
A
This is openwork, a look inside the Watch industry, a podcast from Collective Horology. I'm Gabe Riley, co founder of Collective.
- [00:18]
B
And I'm Asher Apkin, co founder of Collective. Collective Horology is an independent watch retailer based in Southern California. We carry a wide range of independent brands, including Sartori, Biard, Archinaut, Zeitwinkel and more. To learn more about us and see our available inventory, visit collectiveherology.com well, it's
- [00:35]
A
the first open work episode of the new year as we record today, January 9, 2026. Wouldn't you believe there's already plenty to talk about. You know, December is usually a pretty sleepy, sleepy month for, for the industry. But since the last time we covered a lot of news and updates in the industry. A lot, a lot of information has come in, a lot of data has come in about what's going on in the industry, what's going on with products pricing. And you know, there were also a couple of predictions that were made that surprised me that I want to chat about as well. But why don't we start with kind of the, the big story at the beginning of the year, the thing not only that's the biggest probably industry news, but this is something a lot of collectors are talking about in, in groups. It's complicated. There's a lot to discuss here. Certainly it's a topic we've talked about before, which is price increases. And in particular we've got a number of brands whose price increases have been, have been reported. So we've got Rolex, AP and Tudor. I suspect we'll see more price changes and price news as the year rolls on. But as we all know, a lot of brands use the turn of the calendar to increase or make updates, usually increasing to their prices. And I think what's most interesting this year, Asher, is, is we're seeing some differences in the way brands are approaching price increases for the US Market versus other markets. That's the really big difference. And that's the thing that's new this year. Generally, brands try to keep pricing as consistent as they can across markets because they don't want people shopping and trans shipping and using arbitrage pricing in one country versus another to buy watches. That's not good for all sorts of reasons. But here we're in a position where brands, these brands, Rolex, AP and Tudor, have not only announced their Pricing, but they've got some different pricing in the US so in particular in the US, Rolex is at about a 7% price increase for 2026. So generally for steel references, it's about a 5 to 7% price increase over 2025. Now with gold and two tone watches and gold commodity prices have absolutely exploded in the last year. That increase is higher. It's about 8 to 14%. AP, for their part, has 5% increase in prices and Tudor is at about roughly 7%.
- [03:07]
B
Hey, I'm just curious, from a, from an operational standpoint, do you have to be allocated a price increase by ap?
- [03:15]
A
I don't know. You know, it's funny, I saw on Instagram, I'm sure a lot of people have seen this reel at this point. A guy wore those like meta Ray Ban glasses into an AP house, I believe it was in Barcelona, and captured the whole song and dance routine of not being offered a Royal Oak when being asked for one and essentially being bundled and told you need to buy one of these starter pieces. And I'm not even sure if they're available. So yes, I'm sure, just like everything else, pricing pieces are allocated.
- [03:48]
B
Yeah, look, all kidding aside, you know, Rolex and Tudor, same company for all corporate intents and purposes. So it makes sense that we're seeing a relatively consistent price increase there. Also makes sense operationally why that's happening. You know, we've talked about this in the past. I don't think we need to harp on it. But the combination of the impact of tariffs, the fluctuation of the American dollar against the Swiss franc, and of course your commodity costs all come together to create a situation where price increases are.
- [04:17]
A
And inflation.
- [04:18]
B
And inflation, where price increases, I think are probably necessary in order to maintain stability for these companies. So I, I don't, I don't begrudge that to them, and I completely understand why we are where we are now. The inevitable question that comes out of this is, okay, fine, so if the Swiss franc weakens, commodity prices decrease and the Supreme Court completely eliminates tariffs and refunds them, will we see prices come back down? I think the answer to that is a pretty solid and resounding nope. There was a. Well, hang on, let me finish the thought.
- [04:52]
A
I think it depends on the brand.
- [04:53]
B
So, yeah, I do think it depends on the brand, but I think generally speaking it's probably going to be a no. So, for example, there was this rumor floating around for a while that Patek was going to lower its MSRP across the board. MSRPs across the board when the US tariffs came back down to 15%. To the best of my knowledge that has not happened. And I think it makes sense because the other thing that people have to bear in mind with price increases is that it's still tied to brand management and brand integrity. So if a watch was $10,000, it's now $10,500 due to a 5% price increase. They're not going to lower that back down because of course anyone who bought a watch for that 5% increase price is going to be understandably, incredibly frustrated if their product was instantaneously devalued. And just from the perspective of a consumer, if you think that there is always an opportunity for something to come back down, you're never going to make the choice to make a purchase today. So I think once, once a price has gone up, it's up, up. And that's part of the reason why I think frankly some of these price increases, the 14% high end of the gold and precious metal notwithstanding, are actually relatively modest. And I also want to put them into context. If you go back to non erratic economic years, we do still see like 2 to 3% price increases from Rolex on steel models, generally speaking anyway. So going from 2 to 3, you know, 2 to 3 to 7% is a big jump. I mean that's, that's almost twice the increase, but it's probably less than what was actually necessary if you think about the overall economic pressure on some of these brands. So I, you know, not to, not to find myself defending ap, God help me. But I do, I do think that there is, I do think that there is some rationale to this in a way that there isn't necessarily in, in, in some years past.
- [06:42]
A
Yeah, I think a couple things are going on. I don't know as much about ap, but in the case of Rolex and Tudor, you know, part of, part of what's going on here is they're paying a, playing a little bit of cat. So one of the, one of the industry rumors going around at the end of last year with respect to Rolex and Tudor and how they were handling tariffs was that they just basically weren't really importing anything further under the 39% tariff regime. They really weren't importing anything further into the US and they were relying on their stock on hand. So they basically as a company kind of decided like we're going to sit out this 39% tariff, we're going to use the stock and the inventory, we've built up in the country and we'll see where things go. Now when the tariffs ultimately went back down to 15% at the end of end of December, what that really represented for Rolex effectively wasn't a decrease in tariffs from 39 to 15%. It was an increase from 10 to 15% because of course the last time they had been importing was at that 10% tariff rate. So their strategy was a little bit different than other brands. Some brands reacted immediately to the 39% tariffs because they simply had to. They're smaller, they have less inventory on hand, their business relies more on special orders than it does in stock inventory and things like that. And there were some brands that when the tariffs came down effectively from 39 to 15% did lower their costs. One brand we carry who did that with Czapek, I updated all of the Czapek pricing on our website when the pricing, when the tariffs rather went down from 39% to 15%. Now that's a smaller business. They have a very different business model. They focus heavily on pre ordered watches and special ordered watches. And anyone who ordered a watch during that higher priced period we ultimately honored the lower price when that went into effect. But a brand like Rolex and these larger brands where inventory is in stock in a store can't change their pricing in that way. So I think what we see here to some extent is Rolex reacting to what effectively for them was that tariff increase from 10 to 15. Now if you look at the data for European markets, for instance, it really helps paint that picture. So in the United States we said Rolex generally raised prices for 2026 about 7%. In Europe and the UK it was about 1 to 3%. And even with AP that's the same. So their price increases in the UK for instance, we've got some data on that. We're about 2.5%. So what we see is happening in these other markets is they're generally increasing costs to keep pace with inflation and in some cases they're even behind inflation. Now gold and precious metal is separate. Those commodity prices are high everywhere and the prices are rising accordingly everywhere. But when you look at the steel watches, it becomes very clear that what these brands are doing is they're still playing catch up to tariffs and the currency exchange issues and inflation issues in the US market. So I suspect we're not going to see a ton more of dramatic price increases assuming all things remain equal. And these should really be viewed as catch up, but still doesn't take the Sting away. And it's not fun to see prices of the things you want continuing to, to increase. Asher is nodding his head in agreement. So one of the things that we talked about with Dubai Watch Week was the candor we were hearing from industry CEOs and other executives about the impact the slowdown of the, of the industry was having on employment in the industry. And we're starting to actually see some data around that, which is interesting. I think what we heard before was primarily, oh, things are slowing down and therefore suppliers and employment are really being pressured in the industry. Well now we have some, some numbers. As we mentioned on our, on our last episode, exports from Switzerland are down. We've got some November 2025 data that showed a 7.3% year over year decrease. We've heard that exports to the US in that month fell by more than 50%. And obviously the US is a hugely important market for the industry. 2025 exports to China were down about 40% in terms of value compared to the previous year. So these challenges are real and they're showing up in the employment data for the industry, which I think is rather unfortunate. So let's start with job losses here. So in 2025, the industry laid off or had job losses that totaled 835 positions. That's about 1.3% of total employment. Now that doesn't sound so bad. Right. And that's certainly not as bad as some of the decreases in exports and in value that we're seeing. However, if you look a little bit farther into the data, a lot of the suppliers and the brands use a government supported short time work scheme. So these are sort of like partial or part time furloughs that they're able to use and the government will step in with some Support. So about 25% of companies in the Swiss watch industry now report using this short time work program from the Swiss government. And the Swiss government itself extended that program and sort of the amount of time that they'll support short time work from 18 to 24 months. Two years. Two years of support for this. It's pretty stunning when you look at it that way.
- [12:20]
B
Yeah. So a couple of weeks ago I talked about the downstream and the second and third order impact of tariffs on the industry. And this was something that I explicitly called out and I don't like being right about, but it looks like I was. Which was the idea that supply chain and the suppliers themselves that are making componentry for the watch industry are going to be feeling this pressure and that that economic Pressure will move down the line. So if there are, if there are manufacturers, for example, that are canceling orders, are not meeting their terms, things like that puts pressure on the supply. The supply chain puts pressure on the component makers. The component manufacturers maybe change their terms after furlough. Some employees are under heavier financial pressure. That financial pressure moves down the line. That leads to product scarcity and price increase. So what we're really looking at here are the second and third order impacts of messing with free trade. In this particular context, it's not great. And on the one hand, I think the Swiss government and the Swiss economy and culture is structured in a way to create economic and social safety nets, to allow a bit of a buffer here, which maybe in the grand scheme of things may end up making the economic rough waters that the Swiss are currently moving through a little less choppy. I certainly hope that's what will happen here. I mean, but the other side of this too is, you know, when we look at job numbers here in the United States, I think about this as well. I mean, 835 positions, right? That's 835 families. That's a lot of people. And it's not, it's not nothing. And what we want to see consistently is, is job growth, right? We want to see economic growth. We don't want to be saying to ourselves, like, you know, 1.3% decrease. Well, that's not so bad. That's, that's not what I want to say. I want to be saying we're seeing 3 to 5% growth in new jobs, in new opportunity. So, you know, the price increases combined with the net job losses, combined with the reliance on the Swiss government to, to, to put a safety net beneath this absolutely critical element of the Swiss economy are all related. And, you know, we'll have to see how this changes. We're still. There was supposed to be. There was a rumor that today would have been announcement day, decision day, rather from the Supreme Court on the tariffs. They did not deliver an opinion on that today. Obviously, once that happens, that also may have, if they decide to take them out, that may also have secondary and tertiary impacts that, you know, may be net positive. I sincerely hope that's what will happen, but we'll have to see. So that's where we are economically as we head into the beginning of Q1 here.
- [15:15]
A
Hey, it's Gabe. Openwork is proudly ad free and requires no paid subscription. If you'd like to support the show, please take a moment to subscribe. Rate and review on your podcast platform of choice. Please also check out and subscribe to collective horology on YouTube where you'll find hundreds of videos we we've made on independent watchmaking. You can find our channel@collective horology.com YouTube and of course you can always support the podcast by picking up a watch from over a dozen independent brands along with our Latest merch@colusive horology.com thanks for listening and for your support. Now back to the show. I think, you know, when I think about this, two two thoughts come to mind. First, the Swiss government stepping in in this way to support the industry and to support jobs has a couple of benefits. I mean, the first is to your point, if and when the industry, when the industry experiences an upturn, people are going to be in place, ready, willing and able to pick up shifts and to pick up work and to meet increased demand. That's a good thing. We've heard a lot about watchmaker shortages, not only outside of Switzerland, but even within Switzerland itself. And so to be able to have trained people who you can essentially keep warm and keep employed and keep in the industry and then when demand increases, be able to scale up is incredibly helpful. Secondly, and there was some, we did that industry kind of executive episode a while back where we talked about some of the key executives in the industry. And one of the people I called out, or one of the entities I called out was the Swiss government itself as being a key player in the industry. And that was really in the context of like their, their role in creating what ultimately became the Swatch group. But the Swiss government is very supportive of the industry. And look, the reason they're doing that is to support employment and the well being and the livelihoods of Swiss citizens and to your point, families who depend on the industry. But not for nothing, they are essentially subsidizing what is a hobby for most people. You know, watch enthusiasm. And watch collecting is a hobby. And it's something that most of us engage in for fun and for and for pleasure. And here you have the government subsidizing that in one form or another. And I think that's important to keep in mind because it's very cynical for all of us, certainly with fatigue around price increases like we've talked about, but even people within the industry, it's very easy, whether we're collectors or in the industry to be cynical about watch pricing and the dynamics of the watch market and the dynamics of the watch industry. And I think this is a great example of the government performing a service not only for the people who work in the industry, but everyone around the world who buys watches, what they're effectively doing here is subsidizing watch production and ultimately subsidizing watch purchases. Not for nothing, I think they deserve some, some credit for that.
- [18:24]
B
They're back, they're backstopping their economy.
- [18:25]
A
I mean, my point is I think it has, it has a positive benefit if you're in watch enthusiast or a collector.
- [18:31]
B
Absolutely.
- [18:32]
A
And what it ultimately helps do as demand swings one way or another, whether the demand really dries up or the demand explodes, the backstop they're providing helps keep prices in, in check. Because I would have to imagine one of the largest prices or inputs for the industry is labor. And they're helping remove volatility from labor costs by doing this ultimately 100%. So hey, here's to the Swiss government. Indeed. The Swiss government has pulled many rabbits out of the hat this year. I mean they certainly deserve credit for their persistence in negotiating a trade deal and they deserve ongoing credit for their persistence in supporting the labor market in the watch industry. Now speaking of things that surprising, you know, we did our 2026 year end or sort of our 2026 predictions for, for the industry and I wanted to take a look on what others were saying and others were predicting to see where the things that we called out were maybe in line with, with other predictions or maybe wildly out of line. And I don't think fundamentally anything we, we predicted was crazy one way or another. But one thing did pop up when I started to look at predictions from other, from other media entities in the watch industry which was a return to larger case sizes. Now this really surprised me but the more I thought about it and in fact an experience I had this morning makes me more open minded to this. So what we're hearing in particular from a number of media outlets, so Fratello would be one, monochrome would be another. In their 2026 predictions they call for a return to large case sizes. And we all certainly know the appeal of case sizes and the pendulum of case sizes is always swinging. And more recently it's been towards smaller watch case sizes, really 38 millimeters and under, significantly under. And what we're hearing in these predictions is a return to the 40 millimeter and over as the back to the new, back to the new normal. And I don't know what to make about that. What are your thoughts on that one?
- [20:42]
B
I think things are cyclical. I also like, I kind of think the big watch, little watch thing is, is, is a little Bit of an eye roll to me personally. Now preface by saying, like, everyone's got, you know, everyone's got their own taste. And I've certainly had some watches on my wrist, right? Literally can't wear them because they're hanging off like the, you know, the, the lug to lug is just such that it's over the edge of my wrist and therefore unwearable. But I also, you know, I do own like a PAM 312. That's a 44 millimeter watch on my 6.75 inch wrist. That's a big watch, man. And it's fun to wear because it's a big watch, you know, So I think I tend to put a little bit less stock in this idea that like, you know, we're going to swing back and everyone wants something bigger and then everyone's going to want something smaller. What I hope we are starting to see is continued diversity in the space because sometimes a format of a watch is, is driven by its purpose, and that purpose requires a larger case. So, like, for example, that Pam 312, really, only I think it, it wouldn't work as well. It would look ridiculous in 38 millimeters. Supposed to be a big gigantic watch that originally, originally was based off of something that housed a pocket watch. Movement had to be that big to house that movement. That's why it was there, you know, so all of this to say maybe it matters, maybe it doesn't. I, I'm, I just hope that what we see is people or watchmakers who are not choosing not to make something because they worry it will be too big or they worry it will be too small. And we saw two extremes of that this year, like within Ming, for example, or last year rather, with the Project 21, you know, is a 35 millimeter watch. I think a lot of people thought that that was, you know, quote, unquote, too small, but when they had it on the wrist, it was just right, because proportionally that that worked for that watch and made sense. And then if we stay within the Ming family, for example, we also saw the release of the 57 Series Iris, which was by Ming standards, pretty darn big at 40 millimeters with very dramatic stepped lugs. And that worked because that was what the design called for. So I honestly, I look at this and just say, I hope we see more diversity in design, as I always do, and that the size of the watch should be dictated by the purpose of it and what is necessitated, rather than like the old school, you know, Breitling strategy of like, well, we'll use the same movement, but then, you know, you can have, you know, big, you can supersize your watch if you want to supersize it, you know.
- [23:06]
A
Yeah, we did an episode, I think on this while back, it was like myth busting in the watch industry. And one of the myths we busted was this idea that, you know, really the only watches that people want now are these 38 millimeter and smaller watches. And demand for larger watches has, has dried up. And there is actually some truth to it, but the fact remains, the core of the watch market in terms of popularity value of watches being sold is in 40 to 42 millimeters for sure. That, that, that is still the dominant side. Where things have changed is around the edges. So from 2023 to 2024, year over year, the sales of watches 45 millimeters and up dropped 12%, whereas the share of watches at 36 millimeters rose by 47%. So kind of at the, at the ends of the barbell, there's, there's movement up and down, but the core of the market and the vast majority of the sales are in that 40 to 42 millimeter sweet spot. And so my, my theory of the case here is that, you know, when it comes to what is the case size du jour, it's dominated by the vocal minority eye of the community shifts to smaller case sizes. The people who prefer larger case sizes get very vocal about it. So for instance, I posted earlier, earlier this week we posted a video on the dive watches of Ming where we talk a lot about the Bluefin and the ooni. These are 38 millimeter dive watches. And of course, one of, of the comments, Surefire, there it is. One of the first comments we get is that 38 millimeters is too small for a dive watch. And that, you know, if, if only the watch had 40 millimeters or over, this particular customer would have been in. And look, if someone wants or prefers a 40 to 42 millimeter watch, great, that's no problem. There are amazing options for them. But of course, when the pendulum swings the other way and the eye of the community and the discussion is around larger watches, we're going to hear again from a vocal minority who would really prefer things to be 38 millimeters and under. So I think a lot of what this is isn't what's commercial, what sells, what people actually want. It's what's in vogue, what's discussed, what's topical. And then we get a vocal minority, understandably, who advocates for just the opposite thing. And the pendulum begins to move in the other direction. So I don't think we're going to see any real change, frankly, in the sale of 40 to 42 millimeter watches or smaller watches. I think I expect things to say relatively the same. But we'll see how the industry, or rather the media and the community, discusses these things in the year ahead. Who knows, maybe big watches are back. Maybe 45 millimeter watches will be up 40% this year. We'll see. Who knows.
- [26:06]
B
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, it's interesting. I was having a conversation with a client earlier today and with all of the economic questions around watches, he asked me, hey man, so what do you think is coming at Watches and Wonders? And I had this like moment of wow, even though we are planning our Watches and Wonders meetings, it's sort of been in the back of my head and I haven't really been thinking about it all that much because we've been so operationally focused with the holidays and the rest of it. But yeah, I am going to start thinking about this now because I am sort of curious about what, what you and I think, you know, we're going to start seeing from a trend standpoint heading into this next Watches and Wonders, especially since this next Watches and Wonders also has some interesting movers and shakers, you know, related to it with Moser moving out of the independent space and into the main hall, for example, and you know what that means, I think symbolically for a lot of people and what that's going to mean from a product standpoint and the expect, you know, which is also sort of an interesting thing, not to get off on a tangent about it, but with Moser about this sort of idea of like, well, if they are moving from this, from, you know, the space of the independence where everything is creatively expected and permitted into the main hall, which is speaking to a much larger, more mainstream audience, if that will impact the way that they approach their product design and whether or not that will increase or decrease their willingness to take risk and what the reaction from the rest of the Carre, the rest of the independent world will be to that investment or change or pivot. So that's why, you know, when people are like, oh, big watch, small watch, I'm like, yeah, whatever. What I'm more interested in there is like where the dynamics are going to pivot and where, where we'll see creative investment in the independent world, given some of the changes that are coming within the industry itself over the next few Months.
- [27:58]
A
Yeah. One of the, the big stories about movers and shakers at Watches and Wonders is Audemars Piguet joining the fair, which I, I think shocked me.
- [28:08]
B
Wait, I'm sorry, hang on. They were allocated a space.
- [28:12]
A
They were, they were allocated. They were out. Yeah. The, the idea of like, you know, them having to ask to join something is, is, is interesting. They, they must have been, they must have been courted very, very aggressively. But they're joining the show, which I believe they participated in. Sihh.
- [28:29]
B
Yeah, they did. They did. In fact, I was. The very first SIH I attended was the one where they announced the, the 1159, which was a fascinating, fascinating event to be at.
- [28:41]
A
Officially. AP is saying they want, you know, to, to broaden, bring a broader audience to, to Geneva and to Watches and Wonders. How, how generous of them and, you know, be at Watches and Wonders to have an open dialogue with the, the clients or clients and the, the industry and things like that. But I, you know, I kind of wonder really, why are they, they, they, they joining?
- [29:06]
B
I'll bet you 50 bucks I know why they're joining. I would imagine that they are joining because they, they want to find retailers again.
- [29:14]
A
Interesting. Yeah, I mean, my, My, my view of it is, is a little bit different. I think they look at the fair and they look at the role that Rolex and AP play, which is they, they tend to really dominate the fair and dominate the news and the coverage of the fair. And I have again, we've talked about who are the big four. Who's really dominating the industry in terms of sales. It's Rolex, it's Patek Philippe, and then it's AP and Richard Mille. Now, Richard Mille probably doesn't need to be at Watches and Wonders for all sorts of reasons. But I start to wonder if AP is maybe feeling like they don't want Rolex and AP dominating the headlines.
- [29:55]
B
It's, I mean, maybe that. I'm sure that's a component of it. I think it's much more about the. Well, okay, let me put you this way. What is the fundamental purpose of the Watches and Wonders physical event? Because there's nothing stopping AP from erecting a $5 million structure in downtown Geneva if they want to capture attention. But they didn't do that. They chose to go to the actual show. And who is at the show? I mean, putting the public days are sort of an afterthought, realistically speaking. So who is at the show? It's, it's media and it's buyers I
- [30:31]
A
think it's commercial, it's from media. If you set up downtown, I'm sure the media will come to see ap. But if you set up, of course, if you set up at the fair, though, it just greases the skids. It makes it so much easier to have an appointment to shoot, content to report, to get an appointment last minute when you find out about a novelty. To me, it, it's, it, it's.
- [30:53]
B
I'm not, I'm not saying that that's not the case. I think that that's a part of it. I'm just saying I think you could get almost all the way there without being on the floor.
- [31:03]
A
Yeah, but I think of being on the floor matter. If AP wants to position themselves, you know, at the center of the industry and they don't want Rolex and Patek dominating. Putting yourself on the showroom floor next to them is the best way to do that. If you put yourself outside of the fair. Yeah, you could claim, oh, well, we're independent, we're a maverick brand, we do things differently, we have a more high end execution. But you start to wonder, well, were they not invited? Why aren't they there? If they're really at the heart of the industry, why aren't they on the floor?
- [31:34]
B
Next, my argument, my argument against that is the, is the entirety of the Swatch Group.
- [31:39]
A
Yeah, but, well, that this is a podcast unto itself. But I mean, is it a mistake for the Swatch Group not to be there?
- [31:46]
B
I, that is a podcast unto itself and we should go down that road separately.
- [31:51]
A
But, but look, I, I mean, should they be there or should they be counter programming in Geneva during the show?
- [31:56]
B
Ask Breitling. That's what they do too. Look, I, I make this bet to you. I make a $50 bet that we hear within the next six months that AP has retail partners again.
- [32:07]
A
Okay, that's your theory. My theory of it, to put it more specifically, is just like everything else. Although they would never admit it and the guy being filmed at the AP house in Barcelona with the Ray Ban glasses would certainly never admit it and would lead you to think otherwise. I think AP sales are softening now. They're probably still selling as many watches. They may be even selling more watches or greater value of watches. But the number of phone calls an associate at the AP Boutique or the AP House needs to make to sell a watch is probably going up and up. Used to be able to pick up the phone, call the phone rather, and the first person to answer the call would buy the Watch now, maybe they need to call three clients or four clients or five clients. And I think this is a defensive move where they see their business softening around the edges. Their, their production is still so small, especially compared to Rolex and even, even Patek Philippe. And, you know, we have given Rolex and Patek Philippe tremendous credit on this podcast, and they deserve it for being extremely long term and taking the long view in the way they run their businesses. They don't run them year to year or even decade to decade. They run them generation to generation. And they've made decisions about how they show up in the industry that they stick with and how they manage their brand that they stick with come hell or high water. Ap, on the other hand, although like those two brands, is technically independent, is far more reactive in almost everything they do. I mean, and this isn't necessarily a diss. It's. It's just the, a fact. You know, they're, they're reactive and this is a good thing in some ways, or it's been a good thing for them. They're reactive to culture. You know, look at what they've done in terms, positioning their brand into culture, creating products. You know, we can bash the Marvel watches that they make, but they're positioning their products into culture. They're reacting to culture and participating in it in a way that those other brands, Rolex and, and Patek, don't. And that's not a diss on them. They just manage their brand very differently, but in a business sense. And in terms of the business cycle itself, AP is also reactive. And so when they made a decision not to participate in Watches and wonders, although those other brands did, that was reactive. You know, they were reacting to a unique position of strength that they had at that point in time in terms of sales and brand and demand. They didn't need to do it, so they didn't. And now I think that sales are softening around the edges. Maybe not in terms of the numbers, but the demand is softening is probably a better way of putting it. They're reacting. They're seeing that they need to be back at the center of the industry, back at the center of the discussion. They don't want AP and Patek running away with it. That's what they're doing here. So that, that's my call.
- [34:56]
B
All right, I'm on red, you're on black. Let's see, let's see what happens.
- [34:59]
A
All right, well, we'll see where this goes. Watches and Wonders, to your point, is right around the corner. We are already booking those meetings and quite busy. So let's leave it there. What do you say? All right. Well, thanks for listening. Openwork is of course a production of Collective Horology. You can find us online@collativephorology.com and please get in touch with with those questions, that feedback and those suggestions. We would love to hear them. And to do that, just email podcast collective Parology.com.