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5/01/2017
Swiss watches bad performance
BASELWORLD, a giant watch fair that ended last week, usually
runs like clockwork. Companies show off new products and higher sales follow.
However, something seems to have jammed. Exports of Swiss watches sank by a
tenth in 2016, the worst performance since the financial crisis. Swatch, the
world’s biggest watch company, saw profits plunge by 47%. In February exports
were 10% lower than they had been a year earlier.
Swiss watchmakers have been around for long enough not to
panic: Blancpain, owned by Swatch, dates back to 1735; Vacheron Constantin,
owned by Richemont, a Swiss luxury conglomerate and Swatch’s closest rival, was
founded 20 years later. In La Chaux-de-Fonds, a watch-manufacturing hub,
workers toil much as they always have, at chin-high desks, using slim
instruments to assemble springs, wheels, jewels and other tiny parts. But
swings in demand have of late been particularly extreme.
The period from around 2004 to 2012 saw high growth. Chinese
shoppers accounted for about half of Swiss watch sales during that time,
reckons Thomas Chauvet of Citi. Manufacturers introduced pricier products and
raised the cost of existing ones. The financial crisis was a blip. Chinese
demand for watches, as for handbags and fashion, has since waned. Fewer Chinese
are buying watches in Europe, due to higher import duties and fears of
terrorism. Sales in Hong Kong, the industry’s most important market, remain
depressed.
In the longer term, the worry in the industry concerns the
young. Apple now claims to be the world’s second-largest watch brand, after
Rolex. “Will they consider the watch as a possible status symbol or as an
information-tool or as a design product?” asks Jean-Claude Biver, who runs the
watch business at LVMH, a luxury-goods conglomerate. “Who knows?”
Watchmakers are often slow to recognise changes in demand;
many firms are only now starting to track which models sell to which consumers,
where. Even for watchmakers with better data, the meticulous nature of making
and assembling components means they will find it hard to build a flexible
supply chain.
Firms’ responses to the challenges have varied. Swatch is
mostly carrying on as usual. As for Richemont, last year it bought back older
inventory from the stores it distributes to in order to clear shelf space for
new models.
At LVMH, Mr Biver is also trying hard to hook millennials:
about two-fifths of advertisements are directed at those who cannot yet afford
his firm’s watches. Last year its TAG Heuer brand introduced a connected watch
developed with Google and Intel, which sold well. Other brands seem set to
follow its lead: next month Richemont’s Montblanc will start selling a
smartwatch with a heart-rate sensor and a built-in microphone, among other
features. But the smartwatch category itself is far from established. In
trendsetting Silicon Valley and elsewhere, the status timepiece of choice is
often a smartphone.
edited from The Economist
The Parthenon of Books
 |
| Friedrichsplatz Kassel Parkhaus |
Marta Minujín, documenta 14, and Frankfurter Buchmesse cordially invite the public, publishers, and authors to donate books for the artwork The Parthenon of Books and thereby become part of the work.
The Parthenon of Books by artist Marta Minujín is a decisive
symbol of resistance to any banning of writings and the persecution of their
authors. As many as 100,000 formerly or currently banned books from all over
the world are needed to create the work on Friedrichsplatz in Kassel (photo), where, on
May 19, 1933, some 2,000 books were burned by the Nazis during the so-called
“Aktion wider den undeutschen Geist” (Campaign against the Un-German Spirit).
In 1941, the Fridericianum—which was being used as a library at the time—was
engulfed in flames during an Allied bombing attack, and another collection of
about 350,000 books was lost.
The installation The
Parthenon of Books will be constructed as a replica of the temple on
the Acropolis in Athens, symbolizing the aesthetic and political ideals of the
first democracy.
Minujín’s The Parthenon of Books traces its
origins to an installation titled El Partenón de libros, which was
realized in 1983, shortly after the collapse of the civilian-military government
in Argentina, and presented the books that had been banned by the ruling junta.
After five days of exhibition, two cranes tipped the installation slightly to
one side, allowing visitors to remove the books and take them home. She will
allow the same thing to happen this time.
Everyone is invited to
support the realization of the artwork with donated books. Between October 19
and 23, 2016, documenta 14 will be a guest at the Agora of the Frankfurter
Buchmesse in order to collect book donations. Your contributions toward the
collection of 100,000 books are very important for the realization of this
work. Beyond the timeframe of the Frankfurter Buchmesse you are very welcome to
send books via mail to Athens or Kassel or drop them off in person.
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