Several Swiss watch industry may be chaos by China's piracy watch challenge

Recently, for the first time, the Swiss Watch Federation has acquired a group of pirate watches smuggled from China into Switzerland with extremely sophisticated craftsmanship and is amazed at the art of counterfeiting. Reported that these false watches with similar prices for the Swiss watch industry has brought huge economic losses, but also damaged the Swiss watch market image.

Reported that only very close very close, or even use the microscope to find these fake watches exist flaws, such as the back of a watch with a screw seam, or the case of carbon material is replaced by plastic material, or the glass on the dial No polarizing function. But apart from these small details, even watch experts are hard to see at a glance they are fake. A December last year in the Swiss customs confiscation Hublot "Big Bang" Ferrari watch, it can completely confused with genuine fish. Both the appearance, weight, and even taste - with a real vanilla flavor - are surprisingly similar, but the most exaggerated is the core of the watch.

"This is the first time I have a replica Tourbillon in my hand, a very high-precision mechanical construction. The imitators now have an exceptionally sophisticated watchmaking skills." Swiss Watch Association Counterfeiting Division Said Michel Arnoux.

Swatch, the world's largest watch center, is concerned about the rapid growth of the Chinese counterfeit watch market and the trend towards cutting-edge areas. Unlike fake Rolex watches that sell dozens of Swiss francs in Asian and Latin American markets, these Chinese Jaguar watches can blind the customer's eyes by selling thousands of Swiss francs at a high price, leaving the brand company at a huge loss.

"Piracy watches billions of dollars a year in the watch industry," said Nick Hayek, owner of the Swatch Group. "The biggest problem is that these counterfeit products are becoming more and more specialized."

Reported that, imitators mainly use the Internet market to sell their products, the main sales target is an individual. "In the midst of the financial crisis, many New York and London stockbrokers sold their watches on the Internet cheaply, and the imitators snapped in and lied about the sale of second-hand watches," Arnold said.

On the other hand, many lay people and watch lovers consciously or unconsciously buy fake watches. "The price of watches has risen in the past few years, so many watch lovers turn their attention to the 'used' watch."

The report also said that although no one is willing to publicly admit, but in the Swiss watch industry there is such a statement, some brands to promote the "policy" to some extent encouraged by the fake watch maker's behavior. For example, the Swiss brand to the traditional markets, such as the United States, Europe, the sales network is greatly restricted, which makes many small businesses have to use the "second-hand" market to fill the supply deficiencies, so counterfeiters have a ride machine. The President of Hublot has said many times over the past few years how proud his watch is being imitated, which shows that his brand has a place in the international market.

But nowadays, counterfeiting is not exactly a matter of economic loss. "If consumers no longer care about the difference between genuine and counterfeit goods, then trust is lost, which is a blow to the Swiss brand," Arnold said. He also said that Guangdong Province is a fake watch production center, where there is a daily police search and search, "but the effect is not great, because everything is carried out separately, there is no economic relationship between the roles, the main components of the watch sometimes Legitimate formal enterprise production, and then in the secret hand workshop installation. "