Rolex hikes watch prices in UK as gold costs soar to new highs
ROLEX raised prices for some of its precious metal watches in the United Kingdom by 4 per cent after the price of gold surged to record highs.
The retail cost of the Rolex Daytona chronograph in white gold rose 4 per cent to £38,700 (S$66,622) from £37,200 as at Jun 1, according to information on the Swiss watchmaker’s UK website, tracked by Bloomberg News.
The price of a yellow gold GMT Master II jumped to £35,400 from £34,000.
Country-specific prices for timepieces made by Geneva-based Rolex can be seen as an indicator of a country’s economic strength. The world’s top luxury watch brand produces more than one million watches per year, with sales above 10 billion Swiss francs (S$15 billion).
The price of gold has surged 14 per cent this year, touching an all time high of US$2,450 an ounce in May on optimism the US Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates. The British pound last month rose to its highest against the euro since August 2022.
A Rolex spokesperson in Geneva declined to comment on the change in prices.
Rolex typically raises prices for its watches once a year, in January. It increased prices in the UK by about 4 per cent for some models at that time, including some steel watches, but left US prices unchanged.
Major currency swings spurred Rolex to raise prices twice in the UK in 2022, in January and September, as the pound skidded to its lowest level against the US dollar in decades. Rolex also hiked prices in European countries twice that year. BLOOMBERG
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