The German jewelry and watch trade is booming. Last year, the industry increased its sales by a good 21 percent to 5.3 billion euros, as Stephan Lindner, President of the Jewelers’ Trade Association, said on Friday in Munich. The industry has finally left the Corona low and is even around half a billion euros above the pre-pandemic year 2019.
“Despite the inflation and the crises: luxury is running,” emphasized Lindner at the start of the jewelry and watch fair Inhorgenta in Munich. The main driver here is people’s urge to “treat themselves to something again”. In demand are “valuable” pieces such as Gold jewellery, diamonds and precious stones.
Both the watch and jewelry sectors increased by more than a fifth. However, jewelry still accounts for the lion’s share of sales at EUR 4.1 billion. Watches accounted for 1.2 billion euros.
The customer frequency is still below the pre-Corona values, but this has been more than offset by a trend towards more expensive products, said the association president. In addition, last year after the end of the pandemic restrictions, there was a shift back to the stationary specialist trade: the proportion of pure online trade fell from 14.4 to 12.2 percent. The proportion of stationary specialist trade, on the other hand, grew from 49.4 to 50.7 percent – that is more than before Corona. If you also count the specialist trade with branches, the figure is even around 70 percent.
Business in industry was also positive. “Overall, we have had a very good year in 2022, we can be very satisfied,” said Guido Grohmann, CEO of the BVSU industry association. Among other things, jewelry exports increased by 23 percent to around 3 billion euros. Watch exports increased by 9 percent to 1.7 billion. (dpa)