The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry's August figures, published in mid-September, mark a quiet turning point. Exports rose 9.1% year on year to about CHF 1.79 billion, the fourth consecutive month of growth, and the eight-month cumulative total moved 1.7% ahead of 2025 at roughly CHF 17.24 billion. That is the first time the year-to-date number has been positive after eight months in two years, and the 12-month moving average has returned to positive territory for the first time since 2024.
The recovery is more notable for where it did not come from. For most of 2026 the story was the United States: new tariffs on Swiss goods pulled American imports forward into late 2025 and then collapsed them, with US shipments down more than 50% in April alone. August continued that correction. Exports to the United States fell 19.4% to CHF 197.5 million, and the US, which spent the past two years as the industry's single largest market, is no longer carrying it.
The growth is Asian and European
What replaced American demand was a broad recovery almost everywhere else. Shipments to China rose 15.8% and to Japan 22.1%, the two markets doing most of the work, with Hong Kong up a slighter 1.4%. The surprise was Europe: exports to the United Kingdom jumped 46.1% to CHF 164.7 million, enough to make Britain one of the month's largest destinations, and continental markets were strong behind it. The pattern is the mirror image of early 2026, when Asia was flat-to-weak and the US was propping up the totals.
That rotation matters for anyone reading these numbers as a demand signal rather than a shipping artefact. Export statistics measure what left Switzerland, not what sold at retail, and the US swings in particular have been driven by tariff timing and distributor inventory rather than by collectors changing their minds. The China and Japan figures are harder to explain away, and two consecutive quarters of Asian growth is the clearest sign yet that the 2024–25 slump in the region has bottomed.
Cheaper watches led
The segment breakdown is the detail worth watching. Watches priced under CHF 200 at export rose 13.3% in August, the strongest of any band, and the CHF 200–500 tier rose 6.1%. The CHF 500–3,000 middle, where most mechanical watches sit, slipped 0.9%. Pieces above CHF 3,000 did recover, up 10.2%, but the clear outperformance of the cheapest watches is a reversal of the downturn's defining feature, when high-end demand held up and the entry level bore the losses.
Two readings are possible. The optimistic one is that the volume end of the market, quartz and inexpensive mechanicals, is finally recovering after two bruising years. The cautious one is that the headline growth rate flatters the industry by leaning on cheap, high-volume product while the segment that drives most of the value, between CHF 500 and CHF 3,000, is still shrinking. Both can be true at once, and the next two months of data will show which dominates.
What to take from it
For collectors, the August report is less a buy signal than a confirmation that the correction that began in 2024 has run its course on the wholesale side. The brands most exposed to the United States will feel the 19% drop; those with real presence in China, Japan and the UK will not. The number to watch is not the September headline, due in late October, but whether the CHF 500–3,000 band climbs back above zero. Until it does, the recovery is real but narrow.
Sources: Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, figures as reported by Bluewin and Briefs. Early-2026 US and tariff context from WatchPro.
