Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek says more than one million MoonSwatches had been sold by the end of November last year.
If that rate continued for a full year, it would mean 1.5 million made and sold in a year since the bioceramic Speedmaster clone was created in March 2022.
In an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Mr Hayek admitted he has been surprised by the demand for MoonSwatches, and said the company had not been able to ramp up supply to keep pace despite two facilities running around the clock producing them.
Manufacturing will pick up speed with a reconfiguration of Swatch’s facilities, a process that was scheduled to happen last summer, but delayed because of the overwhelming need to keep production as high as possible for MoonSwatch last year.
Although Swatch Group is a publicly-traded company, it does not break down production figures or sales by individual brands.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley, with help from Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult, publishes an annual roundup estimated these figures brand-by-brand, and put Swatch production at 3.2 million units in 2021.
Assuming Swatch sales increased across its portfolio off the back of the MoonSwatch hype, the company may well have shifted 5 million watches in 2022.
MoonSwatches are still on sale only at Swatch shops and not online.
The number of Swatch shops has increased from 120 to around 180, but customers are still complaining that they might have to travel hundreds of miles to a store, only to find that any stock deliveries are snapped up by flippers who continue to queue for any opportunity to buy the watches.
Mr Hayek says the strategy to lure customers to physical stores continues to make sense, particularly since ecommerce sales of watches across the portfolio have fallen since spiking during the first lock downs in 2020.
Sales of Omega’s full fat Speedmasters have also benefited from the publicity around the MoonSwatch.
Mr Hayek told NZZ that in-store sales of the actual moon watch, the Speedmaster Professional, had risen by more than 50% in Omega’s own stores since the MoonSwatch was unveiled.
