Silke Koltrowitz

ZURICH, (Reuters) – Sales of LVMH luxury watch brands Hublot & Bulgari have risen above 2019 levels over the past year. More growth can be expected due to stronger U.S. sales, executives said to Reuters before LVMH Watch Week begins Monday.

Hublot and Bulgari are hosting LVMH watch week online with digital presentations from their latest collections.

Hublot has a new slim version of their Big Bang watch. Bulgari in Italy offers Serpenti Misteriosi watches, which can be hidden with snake-like bracelets or rings.

Serpenti watches can be as high as 240,000 Euros ($271,464.00 for the highest models). They are powered by a miniature Piccolissimo mechanical motor.

In 2020, the Pandemic decimated Swiss retail outlets and curbed tourist. This caused sales of luxury Swiss watches to plummet. They rebounded last year with Swiss watch exports barely above the 2019 level at November’s end, due to the strong demand from the United States of America and China.

On January 27, Switzerland will report full-year exports of watches. Luxury goods group LVMH also reports full-year results.

Hublot chief executive Ricardo Guadalupe stated that 2021 was an excellent year and did better in 2019 in a Monday interview. He highlighted 30% growth in sales in the United States as well as “excellent numbers in China”.

We won’t experience the same rebound in 2021 as 2022 but we expect solid growth.”

He stated that many tourists are still not shopping and that production issues caused by Omicron workers being sick, which he hoped would be fixed before the end of the summer.

Jean-Christophe Babin (City of Bulgari) stated that the brand also did well last year, despite not having a pandemic in 2019. This was due to market share gains.

He stated that he wanted to keep the positive trend going in 2022. Adding new models of yellow gold should attract U.S. buyers who love this type of gold. Asians prefer rose gold.

Babin stated that the United States was our second largest market and has one of today’s highest growth rates.

Kering (PA:), a French luxury goods company that is also big, announced Monday that it would be selling its Swiss watches brands Girard-Perregaux & Ulysse Nardin.

($1 = 0.8841 euros)