Collectors Are Returning And So Is The Momentum In The Luxury Watch Market (Market Report)

The luxury watch market is showing signs of life that feel markedly different from the speculative frenzy that characterized 2020 and 2021.

The Chrono24 and Fratello H1 2025 findings reveal a market stabilizing with selective growth rather than broad euphoria, with clear recovery signals emerging in specific brands and categories rather than lifting everything indiscriminately.

Three forces are leading this rebound: Gen Z demand concentrating in particular brands, a genuine dress watch renaissance that’s reshaping category preferences, and brand share shifts toward a more diversified top tier where Rolex remains stable, Omega holds steady, and Cartier gains meaningful ground.

The macro backdrop supporting this recovery looks less like hype and more like rational market mechanics, as retail price hikes and U.S. tariff effects have nudged value-seeking buyers toward pre-owned platforms, helping secondary prices stabilize after the brutal 2023 and 2024 correction that wiped out pandemic-era gains.

Market Overview And Key Recovery Signals In H1 2025

The market tone shifted noticeably through the first half of 2025, moving from persistent decline toward something that looks increasingly like a floor. After the correction that ran through 2023 and 2024, declines slowed materially in early 2025, with multiple datasets pointing to a stabilization process rather than another leg down that would have taken secondary prices to new lows.

The concrete evidence shows up in Q2 2025 numbers, where pre-owned prices fell just 0.3% quarter over quarter, representing the smallest drop in 13 quarters and an early signal that downside pressure has largely exhausted itself for liquid references.

External confirmation arrived by October when trackers reported the first quarterly gains in more than three years, led by Rolex and Patek Philippe on secondary indices that had been declining relentlessly since their 2022 peaks. This represents a meaningful inflection rather than just statistical noise, suggesting the market has worked through the speculative excess that built during the pandemic and found pricing levels where genuine collectors see value rather than just momentum chasers hoping for quick flips.

The mechanism driving this stabilization combines retail and policy dynamics in ways that channel demand toward secondary markets. Retail price increases from Swiss manufacturers combined with import tariffs funneled buyers away from authorized dealers and toward pre-owned platforms where pricing remained more attractive even after accounting for the lack of manufacturer warranty.

Research from our analysts tracks what they call the Retail-to-Resale Pressure Ratio, measuring announced retail price changes relative to secondary price movements for top liquid references. When this ratio stays elevated above one, as it did through Q2 and Q3 2025, it suggests retail pricing is actively pushing buyers into resale channels in ways that support secondary market liquidity and pricing.

The risk balance remains uneven across the market, with stabilization concentrated in blue-chip brands that recovered faster than mid-tier references or independent watchmakers lacking the liquidity and brand recognition that attract broader buyer interest. This creates a barbell market where the strongest names from Rolex, Patek Philippe, and increasingly Cartier show genuine strength while the long tail of less liquid references continues struggling to find consistent bids.

Brand And Category Trends Driving The Rebound

The brand leaderboard through H1 2025 reveals a more diversified top tier than the Rolex-dominated market that characterized the pandemic boom. Rolex has stabilized rather than continuing to lead upward, Omega maintains steady share suggesting consistent demand without dramatic volatility, and Cartier gains meaningful share particularly among younger buyers reshaping the market’s demographic composition.

This represents a healthier market structure than single-brand dominance would suggest, distributing demand across multiple manufacturers with different design languages and price points.

Cartier’s trajectory among Gen Z buyers tells perhaps the most interesting story in the data. On Chrono24, Cartier’s share among Gen Z purchasers quadrupled over seven years, climbing from 1.7% to 6.8%, a pace that substantially outstripped the brand’s overall site growth from 2.9% to 4.8% during the same period.

This dramatic shift suggests Cartier is capturing the incremental cohort entering luxury watch collecting in ways that position the brand for sustained growth as this generation accumulates more wealth and buying power over the next decade.

The category rotation toward dress watches represents another structural shift rather than just temporary fashion. Gen Z dress watch purchases have climbed 44% since 2018, with dress watches now representing 12% of Gen Z purchases, the highest concentration among any age cohort tracked. This challenges the conventional wisdom that younger buyers only want sports watches and tactical aesthetics, revealing instead a cohort drawn to elegant, understated pieces that work in professional settings and formal occasions where oversized dive watches feel increasingly out of place.

Our analysts note what they call a case-size compression trade happening beneath the surface of dress watch demand. What appears as dress watch renaissance is actually demand rotating into smaller, slimmer, more formal profiles across all categories, not only traditional dress pieces.

This creates persistent bid for references measuring 40mm and under, particularly vintage-proportioned sports watches and modern dress pieces, while oversupply risk builds in the 41mm to 42mm-plus mass-market models that dominated production through the 2010s but feel dated as tastes shift toward more refined proportions.

Buyer Behavior And Liquidity In The Secondary Market

The migration toward pre-owned platforms accelerated through 2025 as Swiss price increases came while U.S. tariffs made authorized dealer purchases substantially more expensive. This pushed first-time buyers and value-conscious collectors toward resale channels where pricing remained more attractive even for references in excellent condition with recent service history.

Some platforms reported new buyer increases of 46% in 2025, representing genuine market expansion rather than just existing collectors recycling pieces within a closed ecosystem.

Our analysts track what they describe as tariff displacement coefficient, measuring how policy-driven price changes shift buyer behavior between retail and secondary channels. Once buyers cross the trust hurdle around authenticity, warranties, and data transparency in secondary markets, a meaningful portion stays in resale even if policy changes later reduce price differentials with authorized dealers.

This suggests permanent uplift in secondary transaction share relative to 2019 through 2022 baselines, with certified pre-owned and warrantied platforms becoming the de facto entry ramp for new collectors in 2026 and beyond.

The liquidity picture remains bifurcated with Rolex, Patek Philippe, Omega, and Cartier maintain tighter bid-ask spreads and stronger sell-through than mid-tier brands, meaning these pieces move faster when sellers need liquidity and pricing remains more predictable.

Our analysts' Liquidity Spread Monitor measures median days-to-sell and bid-ask percentages for blue-chip baskets relative to mid-tier baskets, with the spread remaining wide through 2025 in ways consistent with a flooring phase where quality recovers first.

When this spread begins narrowing, it will signal genuine breadth returning to the market rather than just the strongest names recovering.

What To Watch Next And How Collectors Should Position

Brand share trajectories offer the clearest roadmap for allocation decisions over the next several quarters. Rolex's equilibrium suggests the brand has found sustainable pricing rather than continuing the relentless upward climb that characterized 2020 and 2021. Omega's consistency indicates stable demand without the volatility that makes timing purchases difficult. Cartier's Gen Z pipeline suggests the brand is positioned for medium-term growth as younger buyers age into higher price points and graduate from entry-level pieces to more complicated or precious metal references.

Category durability becomes the key question for the second half of 2025 and into 2026. Does the dress watch trend resume after the H1 pause, or does demand broaden into sport-casual classics that combine everyday wearability with enough formality for professional settings?

Our analysts emphasize monitoring whether Gen Z interest in particular categories and brands is actually translating into sustained price support rather than just social media buzz that doesn't convert into purchases.

Price change momentum on pre-owned indices and the spread between blue-chip and long-tail models provides timing signals for when to enter positions, with the market having likely shifted from price discovery into range-bound accumulation, with Q2 2025's minimal 0.3% decline and subsequent first quarterly gains in over three years describing a flooring band rather than V-shaped recovery.

This creates opportunities to accumulate iconic, high-liquidity references like Daytona, Submariner, Nautilus, and Aquanaut on dips within that band while avoiding thin-liquidity pieces where spreads remain wide and buyer interest uncertain.

The positioning playbook for the next six to twelve months emphasizes a barbell approach. Our analysts recommend allocating 60% to 70% toward blue-chip liquidity in Rolex and Patek Philippe core references that have proven they can hold value and move quickly when you need to sell, while putting 30% to 40% into Gen Z validated growth opportunities, particularly Cartier dress watches and smaller sports pieces.

Rebalancing quarterly using metrics like the Retail-to-Resale Pressure Ratio helps maintain appropriate positioning as market conditions evolve, with sustained ratios above one suggesting continued tilt toward pre-owned makes sense.