Global slump in luxury watch sales hitting closer to S'pore

Singapore

The dip in global sales of Swiss luxury watches last year, the first yearly drop since the 2009 recession, may have finally caught up with Singapore.

While the shipments of Swiss watches worldwide in 2015 slipped 3.3 per cent from a year ago to 21.5 billion Swiss francs (S$30.7 billion), the shipments to Singapore rose one per cent to 1.13 billion Swiss francs, reversing the 1.4 per cent dip in 2014.

In December 2015 alone, retail orders of Swiss watches in Singapore, one of the 10 biggest markets for luxury timepieces, jumped 8.1 per cent year on year to 102.6 million Swiss fra…