Longines bets on heritage and innovation for growth and success

COVID-19 hit Longines hard but the Swiss watch brand has bounced back. Sales were so strong last year that even a 100 million Swiss franc (S$150 million) loss in foreign exchange, no thanks to the sharp appreciation in Switzerland’s currency, did little to dent its performance, according to Longines’ CEO Matthias Breschan, speaking at the unveiling of the brand’s 2024 novelties earlier this month.

Longines is owned by Swatch and like all watch brands in the group’s stable, doesn’t reveal its exact sales and profit figures. But publicly listed Swatch, highlighting a “hugely currency impact”, reported overall net sales rose 5.2 per cent on current exchange rates to CHF 7.9 billion in 2023, far below the 12.6 per cent jump at constant rates. Still, it tipped Longines, along with Swatch and Tissot, to continue to develop strongly in the lower and medium price segments. 

Breschan is holding onto his sales target for Longines to “pass CHF 2 billion” in 2025, though Morgan Stanley has thrown cold water on it. Longines is on the US investment bank’s list of top 10 biggest watch brands for 2023, with an estimated turnover of CHF 1.1 billion. Can Longines double in a year what it has taken 191 years to attain? Breschan’s reply: “They (Morgan Stanley) are totally wrong. We’re much bigger (than Morgan Stanley’s estimate).”

The Longines boss, who came to the top job in July 2020, is bent on mining Longines’ long history and rich heritage more to drive sales. “When I joined the company, I discovered many things I didn’t know,” he says in an interview on the morning after Longines’ watch launch. “If I don’t know, many (more) consumers would not know.” 

Longines invented the GMT, flyback chronograph and revolving bezel – familiar functions and features on watches today. It has made big advances in high-frequency technology and was the first watch brand to time sports events in 1914, producing timepieces that measure one-tenth and one-hundredth of a second.

Yet, for all the watchmaking expertise it has built, the brand does not make its own movements today. Longines relies largely on Swatch-owned movement specialist ETA for them. Breschan says the ETA movements are the most advanced mechanisms and are produced exclusively for Longines by an ETA team dedicated to the brand that is housed in its headquarters in the Saint-Imier municipality. And this arrangement makes business and economic sense not only for Swatch, but also Longines, he adds.

“Our objective is to bring state-of-the-art technology in the price segment of CHF1000-CHF1500 but with exclusive in-house movements with features like the silicon balance spring,” Breschan says.

According to him, the brand’s history and heritage is drawing more attention “as young people are discovering watches as being true and sustainable consumer goods”. “Nobody today buys watches that last six months; you buy watches for your lifetime and even for the next generation,” he says.

The Longines CEO claims the brand also stands out thanks to the strength of its ladies line, and equally its sports and classic timepieces. “We plan to accentuate these three distinctive elements even more.”

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The Longines’ novelties shown to the media and retailers are still largely under wraps. Only two models have arrived on the boutique shelves: The Conquest Heritage Central Power Reserve and the HydroConquest GMT.

The first is a toast to the 70th anniversary of Longines’ Conquest collection of classic watches. Unique in the world of watchmaking, the new watch’s power reserve is displayed on a rotating disc in the centre of the dial.

The new HydroConquest GMT is a bigger version of the model rolled out in 2023. First introduced in 2007, the HydroConquest series was expanded last year to include 41-mm GMT models which come in totally new designs. The latest model also bears the new designs, but comes in a sizeable 43-mm case.