Time for something new
Visitors to Hong Kong may well be overwhelmed by the high proportion of watch advertisements staring out from billboards and neon display cases in the upmarket shopping districts.
The ubiquitous ads may be invisible to residents, but there is no denying the importance of the local market to international watch manufacturers.
Hong Kong residents are voracious buyers of luxury timepieces. The love affair with watches has its roots in many areas, from an appreciation of finely crafted jewellery to the desire to possess a quality symbol of success.
There are other reasons for the success of watches in Hong Kong: with no sales tax, the SAR has become a mecca for the purchase of luxury goods. This is especially true of diamond-studded timepieces that can soar into the six-figure range.
Reflecting the importance of the local market, Italian watch manufacturer Officine Panerai has chosen Hong Kong as the location for its first boutique shop outside Florence, Italy, where the company was founded in 1860.
The boutique is in Prince's Building, Central, home to international brand names such as Dunhill, Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels.
The shop carries all of Officine Panerai's best-known models, including the famed Radiomir and Luminor watches. A close look at the Officine Panerai product line reveals significant trends in the watch market.
Aside from offering jewel-studded works of art styled in a classic tradition, Officine Panerai has also been producing watches for the Italian Navy since 1990. The macho-aesthetic has influenced watch designers for decades, helping to explain the prevalence of bulky watch faces in sturdy metal housings, says Cleopatra Chan, a communications officer with Swissam, a marketing distributor for Concord, Movado and Tommy Hilfiger watches.
'In terms of size, big is still quite dominant,' Ms Chan says.
As can be expected, younger people tend to go for the more sporty designs, while elegance rules for the older generations; rose gold and precious stones, especially large carat diamonds, are favoured this season.
Straddling the line between elegance and affordability, Concord has proved a market winner in Hong Kong. One reason for its success is obvious, says Ms Chan: buyers can indulge in the pleasure of owning a masterfully crafted timepiece in times that call for fiscal prudence. Concord is acclaimed for creating timepieces of exceptional design and innovative technology, since its founding in Bienne, Switzerland in 1908.
