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- [00:00]
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Foreign.
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B
Watch fans and welcome to another edition of the Real Time show with me, your friendly neighborhood watchmaker, Rob Nuts, the friendly neighborhood jeweler Alan Ben Joseph, and the CEO of H. Mose and C Edouard Meylan. Kicking off Geneva Watch Days 2025 in our very new Glass Igloo. The camera's on YouTube now, gents, so behave yourselves. Welcome to Geneva. Welcome to the pavilion. This is our new setup. It's actually raining today, so we've got the curtains drawn so we don't get sunburnt as well. But it's a great pleasure to be joined by you. Ed, thanks for coming on the show and kicking this up.
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A
Thanks for having me.
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B
Oh, well, it's always, always set up. It's good, isn't it? It's worked out. We've pulled it together at the last minute as we often do. But today we are very excited to welcome you because you've brought along a couple of incredible creations I haven't yet had a close look at, but can't wait to hear more about. So would you launch it?
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A
We launched them like 30 minutes ago, so.
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B
30 minutes ago. Okay. So it's really. It really is hot off.
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A
Fresh from the press.
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C
You know, before he starts, Ed and Rob, I just. It daunted on me. You were the first interview or second second we've ever done on the Real Time show almost three years ago. And here we are, media partner for Geneva. Watch this 2025 and you're the bang. The first. Nine o'. Clock.
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A
Nine o'.
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C
Clock. So it shows how innovative we are. And I don't know if you spotted on the camera. We're streaming first time we were hesitant to stream or not. Ed said let's go stronghold. So it shows your innovative spirit and might as well.
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A
Yeah.
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C
And I'm looking at two beautiful watches. So what did you bring? Three or three.
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A
I'm wearing. I'm wearing a novelty we launched two days ago as well. So three new watches for general watch days. Yeah.
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C
So I don't have the camera picks it up, but I see some old lawns vibes. Very cool. What did you bring?
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A
Good eye. Yeah. On. On the two that we have here are flying hours. So they based on the system we developed quite a few years ago now we launched it at watches and wonder. I don't know if it was. Which is a wonder of sihh back then, I think 2019, 2018, I can't remember. It's a system based on satellites. At that time it was like you have the minutes in the Middle rotating and three satellites featuring the hours. The first original version that we developed with the Outlook Steam was a sliding version. So you would have like two numbers visible at the same time. One align with the minutes and the other one would be outside the range. So it could have been a little bit confusing for some customers from some owners. Even though you get used to it pretty quickly now the way we made it evolve and this is why it's very new now. It's a jumping system. So it really, at every hour the system jumps from one satellite to the other and then you only know the time that it is right now. So very intuitive in comparison. If you're familiar, it's similar to the Star Wheel. So something that has been developed two centuries ago, I think AP orwerk have used that. I mean AP first I think in the late 70s, the Star Wheel. And then obviously it's the base for what everything Overk has done amazingly with it and we revisited it. The Star Wheel system is the minutes are fixed and the hours are moving. Here it's the opposite where we have the rotation on the minutes and the satellites are the hours. So a pretty cool combination. There's a very interesting sweet spot for Moser. Like you know, we start around US$15,000 and then the sky is the limit. But I think this, we're really trying at the moment to get some interesting complications around 19,000 starting all the way like to 35. I think there's a sweet spot and that's where those watches are positioned. The gold version is limited to 100 pieces and the steel version is not limited. So yeah, I think two great collect collections for. I mean we have, we have a pretty young collector base in general at Moza and that's definitely very attractive to them.
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C
I've been playing with it and it's stunning. Regular listeners know I'm crazy about ULVER and mbnf. So kudos for pushing the envelope Ed and Team Moser. Maybe the my I've been playing with it and, and I love the click and sturdiness. Maybe the mic can pick this up.
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B
Oh yeah, just a bite.
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C
It's very, very smooth and you can.
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A
See really it jumps at. At. At 60 and it is very mosa. So we try to keep it very minimalistic and, and playing with our F dials here we have an Aventurine dial on the, on the gold version it's a module on top of the 201 movement. So you have the latest, more skeletonized top finishing that we introduced two years ago. And yeah, constantly evolving, Great product, good addition to the collection.
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B
How's business been over summer? Because I mean the last time we were all assembled at a big event was when the tariffs came down.
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A
Yeah, it continues. I mean we on budget, we're planning a small growth compared to last year and we're on it. So nothing to report there. I think. Of course there's a lot of uncertainty around those tariffs, but at Moser, we structured pretty well. We have a subsidiary in the us we have a good cost structure here in Switzerland with a holding system. So it's not bad. I think compared to our competitors, some might be more impacted than we are. We're working on the worst case scenario, but we're working on solutions to make sure that it impacts us and our clients as little as possible. And to be honest, so far it's been the best year ever for Moza. Sellout is great. The US sellout is amazing. Big question is, is there a little bit of anticipation before the tariffs actually hits the end customers? But it's been like this for almost two years now in the us so we have excess demand in other markets. So even if the US goes down, if we need to increase prices, which we might, the question is by how much, then there's other markets that can absorb that. So I'm not too concerned. I think we need to see in the long term and with those kind of things, I mean, worst case scenario for us, it's an increase of 10% of prices and as we know it takes a couple of months and then it's the new normality. As long as the economy continues to go strong in the US and the US dollars doesn't get weakened even further, then I think it's going to be fine. And 2026, we have so many crazy products that I'm not too concerned. But 2025, we're on target and will hit the target.
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B
Very good.
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C
So you said we might need to increase, so you're holding off, you're waiting for.
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A
Yeah, because we're working on solutions to reduce the impact.
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C
Are you waiting for political solutions? Is that something.
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A
No, you cannot anticipate anything. Right. It's really random in a way. So for us it's really worst case scenario, 39%. How do we reduce the impact from there? So we don't care what happens. Whatever solutions we implement, if the tariffs are being reduced, then the result for us will be even better. So we work on the worst case scenario and find the best solution together with our advisors to minimize the impact There's a lot of discussions at the moment with concept that you might have heard about. Something like first sales price, for example. There's different structures you can put in place to reduce the impact. And that's what we're working on. So we're not rushing. We have shipped enough in the last few months so that we can hold until mid October. And so by then we will have to have taken a decision. What does it mean in terms of price increase? Do we want to increase? I heard a few of our competitors or other brands having increased yesterday or on Monday, on the 1st of September by 10%. I think it's a little bit early to do that, but maybe they had to. They had no choice for us. I think we have enough margin to see it coming.
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C
Does that mean a global price increase to harmonize pricing?
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A
Not really. I think there might be a little bit of an amortization, but not to the same extent. I think it's just more. As we know, US Dollar is something that has a lot of impact on the Hong Kong dollar, on RMB and stuff like that. So we might have to modify a little bit our pricing there as well, or increase, but not to some extent to what we would have to do.
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C
In the US I didn't ask you, Rob, because we only met up last night. So ironically, ever since those 39% tariffs, we've been selling my retail operation more to the US Funnily enough. So what Ed is saying now, I see that in our end that the uptick is on the North America side, whereas the Europeans seem more scared. And you don't really feel those tariffs here. Do you notice that in your operations?
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B
No, I wish that were the case for many of the operations in which I'm involved. Behind the scenes. It's been quite impactful to say the least, because a huge percentage of the clients that I'm used to working with are based in the US And I do feel that there's a drop in market confidence. But then, you know, Moser's established an incredible reputation over years and years and years of hard work and good releases and classic releases, especially things like the streamliner and whatnot. So it's a bit of a different position for a brand which is in demand all around the world, as you said. And also, of course, congratulations on your recent GPHG nomination. Another nod. So can we talk about that a little bit? Because this is a very interesting watch at interesting price point.
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A
Yeah. So we got two nominations, actually. We got the. We call it the Driver's Watch. And the mechanics, as you know we, we involved now for almost two years in, in Formula one and a big part of the things we, we wanted to do as we joined Alpine was to try to develop things that would help them. And we developed what we call the mechanics watch which is a, a kind of connected hybrid watch that is dedicated to the mechanics, to the, to the team which allows them to, to commun. Always the global team to you know, get the timings right. As we know it's all fractions of seconds in Formula one at that level is incredible. So we wanted to create something that would be useful to them. So we developed it with them and we thought oh no, we might as well. We've never done a watch that is in that at that price point we're talking 4,500 Swiss francs or dollars can't remember. So we said we might as well put it on the JPHG without. You know, it's not where Moser is usually. So we thought you know, what are the odds? And then it got picked together with also what we call the driver's watch which is like agent graph skeletonized streamliner that we developed with Agenor and the drivers. So the drivers from the team actually designed it and it got picked as well. So it's funny to see those two extreme being selected for the GPHG and let's see how far they go.
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C
You also teamed up with Sequential, with.
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A
Sequential Sequent helped us to develop. I mean obviously we don't have internally the, the capacity, the capabilities to develop a connected watch. It's very specific and I know that because my previous job was working with mobile phones and all these technologies that goes so fast. So we needed somebody who understand that I wanted to keep the, the Moser vibe. I wanted a watch that when, when you see it you're like oh, that's it's a Moser but. And then suddenly you're like oh, but it's connected and sequential. That's what they do. They create amazing hybrid watches. Hybrid system. They have their own system, they have their own team in the Far east developing and, and that's how I got to, to, to work with Adrian actually made the introduction and then we were like wow, let's do it together. And it's been fun and they have so many ideas. They already like we already thinking of how we make it evolve and what could be the, the, the, the next phase for of that project because obviously it's a significant, significant investment. Right now it's only for the Alpine owners but we had so many requests of people saying, you know, could we have one? And we're like, ah, no. But maybe one day we'll see Moser owners special edition, like a drop or something. We'll see.
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B
Oh, that could be interesting. That could be because I couldn't believe it when I saw which category it had popped up in. I mean, you think that's got to be a mistake. Wait, because when you look at the image, you can't initially tell that it's hybrid, it's perfectly in the Moza style.
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A
Yeah, it could be a vantablack with a dial on it.
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B
Exactly. It doesn't look jarring in any way. And it is truly innovative for a brand in your position to try something like this at that price point. I think if you did do a limited drop and opened it up to like an auction, for example, it could work.
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A
We need to see. I mean again, you need, you know, we are brand positioned quite high. But at the same time I think if a brand can, can do that, it's probably Moser. Same time, we've seen the success of Max doing some drops of very entry level watches with the mad. I had a lot of questions around that. How does it impact the brand to kind of democratize too much your products? At the same time, I think we had long discussion with my brother and we said if we were to decide to do it and make it pretty limited in the sense that priority is on the Moza owners and not everybody. I mean, it's a limited edition, then I think it could work. But the idea is not to do it multiple times. So we're exploring right now whether we would like to do a drop or not. And then it could be very cool. And again, as a brand, as a luxury, high end brand, Moser is a brand that we love to try to experiment and do things a little bit, should I say unexpected? And that's why I say if one brand can do that, that's probably Moser.
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B
Have you started working on your acceptance speech yet for gphg if you do win?
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A
Not yet. I never really prepare except if like.
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C
Now I didn't prepare anything.
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B
Happy to go.
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A
But I know who I will thank if we win anything with those. To be honest, I think it's. I don't know, I think as you said, it's very innovative. It's audacious. I think there's always those ideas behind it and I hope people recognize that.
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C
So for our listeners, if you refer to Adrian as our community member and dear friend, Adrian Buchman, now To pivot back to design. Adrian is a designer as well.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Your masterclass about design was during the lockdowns for I believe Watches and Wonders. That was in 2021. Yeah, it was one of my favorite marketing classes that you've guys been writing a design language and design DNA. I think today you've coined and created it by creating products without a logo. When holding this new watch in my hands, it even dawned on me that I didn't have a logo because I expected that from what was a no.
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A
It's true.
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C
Like how long did you guys have internal debates about this new caliber? It's not. Well, the case is existent. But okay. Is it a discussion to add a logo on H. Moser and C logo or no? Is it a given for you guys.
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A
Now on watches like this? It's a given. I mean there's a few exceptions where sometimes you launch something completely new and you know it's going to be all over the press and then it's. It's. For example, when we launched the Pioneer cylindrical Tourbillon there was a small dial on it. We said, you know, it's a very important product that we really want to market it as Moser. We're going far away from what we've done so far. We had never done skeletons before. Then we put the logo because we felt it's part of the education. People need to recognize that it is Mozart and then eventually then we can remove it. Watches like this one said it's an evolution of a movement that existed. The first version was an endeavor so not very sporty, very classic. Worked extremely well when we launched it at Watches and Wonders and there was no logo on that. So we didn't even discuss or consider a logo. I wouldn't even know where to put it, to be honest on that particular movement. And then we had. And then we had many other questions now on different design where I mean the logo is really. There's a clear rule. If we have indexes, then we put a transparent logos. If there's no indexes, there's no logo. Or if it's vantablack, there's no logo because we just can't put a logo on the vantablack.
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C
So I pulled out my loupe just to double check myself because my eyesight is becoming less. If I missed the logo because it's an aventurine now. Very cool. Congrats. You said you brought three watches, so you're hogging the third one.
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A
And yes, I'm. I have it on my Wrist. It's. It's a classic. As you know, at Moser, I fell in love with Moser because of the perpetual calendar. And we have a reimpatriotation of our perpetual calendar. So it's very classic. As we. This year, we played a lot with colors with the pop collection. You've seen the. The pioneer in the summer with the orange and turquoise colors. So sometimes it's good to go back to the essence of what Moser is like, to go to a certain extreme and then come back. And this is what we've done here with this beautiful fume, kind of salmon dial brushed on white gold with a beautiful strap matching the colors. So a very classic compared to probably what we've done since the beginning of the year.
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C
I got the press release that the salmon is back. We call it. We nicknamed it the teriyaki salmon. Which you had in the streamliner.
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A
Yeah, which we had in this. In the streamliner.
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C
And I need my loop because my eyes are not good enough anymore, unfortunately. This watch has indexes, so it has the logo, but it's a transparent logo. Yeah, exactly.
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A
It's applied on it. It's not engraved. It's. It's a lacquered logo that we put on.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Which I love.
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B
Guess what? We've actually got people writing into us on the YouTube channel and via Facebook, where I've also put us live, by the way. I'm totally new to this, so we're going everywhere.
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A
We're learning.
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B
So from Facebook, we've got Christopher Didrickson, who is one of our most ardent members, and he says, tell him the new perpetual is awesome. And he high 10. So he's very thrilled.
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A
So thank you. I love it. I've been wearing it. We had a fight of who's wearing it. I won.
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C
And Christian, it is amazing. And I'm a sucker for fonts. The font is done by you guys for the date for us.
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A
Yeah, we. I mean, some people love it, some hate it. I don't know. It's really difficult, I mean, to. To find the perfect one. As you know, we. We are very Germanic and kind of Bauhaus spirit in at Moser. So that's how we define the fonts we use. And some people like it. Whoever hates it needs to call me somebody. Like, I love this, but is fun as everything with Moser. I think polarizing is always a good thing. I mean, if you want to make. To be successful with relatively niche brands, you cannot try to please everyone. You need to make things that works for you. You will have an audience for that. We make 4,000 watches a year. We don't have to please millions of people. We need those 4,000 people to be hardcore fans of what we do. And so far it's worked for us. For rare people. Sorry, for rare people. For rare people, that's somebody else.
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B
We have got another question from olosminded, one of them you've kind of answered already. It was about the hybrid technology you developed with Sequent. Will that be a one off or is it something you might like to expand in the future?
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A
It's a question mark, but I mean, the more people ask for it, the more tempting it is. So what do they think? Should we do a drop on that?
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B
Yeah, well, let's ask the audience. What do people think about that? Is it something you'd like to see more of?
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A
But if we do, it would be different. It wouldn't be something we link to. This one is very dedicated. It's a tool we created for Formula one. So we would have to make it evolve towards something that is really dedicated to the Moser community. And that's kind of the thought we have right now is how do we make it relevant? How do we make it legitimate and not opportunistic? Because just dropping it to sell watches, I think it's dangerous. And that's the reflection we're having. And we're chatting with Adrian to get his input because he's experienced in that field with Second because he's crazy. And the rest of the team, with my brother, with Niklas, who have more of the sales perspective on those things. So there's a good chance, but it would be great to hear from the people.
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B
All right, good. Well, we'll turn that over to them and hopefully get some more. Oh, we got one straight comment there from Christopher again. He says, yes, do it. So maybe bring it on board.
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A
We got one, let's do it.
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C
But maybe add to it what functionalities you would like to see in the evolution of that watch and watches.
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B
Yeah, be specific.
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A
Yeah, be specific, but be realistic. Also. It's, it's, it's, it's expensive, it's complicated and you want something. I want something where I can give 10 years warranty. It's something like that works for forever and the more complex you try to do. I don't want to make a smartwatch. I'm not going to create. I want something that it's cool to wear, but it's not going to compete with a Garmin or an Apple watch. It's a different type of thing.
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B
Perfect. Well, Edouard, thank you for your time again, as always. We love having you on the show. And we'll have to record another long episode, I'm sure by the end of the year because there's loads of stuff to come and loads of exciting things on the horizon.
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A
2026 is going to be crazy. Stay tuned.
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B
Thanks very much, Ed. Okay, let's wrap it up.
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C
Thank you.