By Corinne Gretler
LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC), which is considering whether to join the race to develop a smartwatch, figures its TAG Heuer is the best — and only — brand in its portfolio for such a product.
If TAG Heuer manages to create something different and unique, it could be unveiled next year, Jean-Claude Biver, the head of the company’s timepiece unit, said in an interview in Zurich late yesterday.
“It’s the brand that might have the best potential and the best price range,” Biver said. “I don’t believe we would do a connected watch in other brands.”
The industry is bracing for the arrival of new electronic gadgets for the wrist like Apple Inc.’s Apple Watch. The smartwatch market will probably expand to about $10 billion in 2018 from as much as $1.8 billion this year, stealing customers away from traditional products, Citigroup Inc. analysts have forecast. The Swiss watch industry is struggling this year amid political protests in Hong Kong, which imports about a fifth of the timepieces produced in the Alpine country.
Biver is taking a slightly different view from the technology companies: he said he’d focus on giving smartwatch users fun, rather than enhanced communications.
“Communications is not the business of the Swiss watch industry,” Biver said. “We don’t have the technology. And if you don’t have the technology, you have to buy it. If you have to buy it, you’re always late.” He declined to provide examples of what a TAG Heuer smartwatch could offer.
LVMH’s Hublot and Zenith brands will be presenting new models at Geneva’s SIHH watch fair in January and at the Baselworld one in March, while TAG Heuer will present new models only in Basel, Biver said.
The Swiss watch industry will probably have a record year in 2014, even as the pace of growth slows, according to Biver. He predicted another small industry-wide sales gain in 2015.- BloombergÂ
To contact the reporter on this story: Corinne Gretler in Zurich at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Celeste Perri at [email protected] Marthe Fourcade
