Photo ©2009 PHOTOPRESS/Gaetan Bally)
Update 15 August 08:10 Bienne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swatch group, the world’s largest maker of watches, posted profits of CHF301 million for the first half of 2009, 28 percent down compared to the same period last year, which was a record year. By late Friday 14 August when the market closed in Zurich the company’s shares had risen 13 percent, the most in 10 months according to Bloomberg, which says the company led a surge in luxury goods share prices.
The watchmaker’s results confirm that the Swiss watch industry is suffering the effects of the global downturn, but the company says it sees signs of recovery and that sales in the second half of the year are expected to beat last year’s sales for the same period.
Sales were down 16 percent to CHF 2.48 billion from January to 30 June 2009. Swatch shares in Zurich rose almost 10 percent to CHF 230 on the news.
The watch industry in Switzerland has shed about 3,000 jobs this year, and more may go. Swatch’s Nicolas Hayek has said he wants to avoid lay-offs.
Related: Bloomberg, Romandie News (Fre).
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 14 August 2009.
Filed under: Business
Tags: Bienne, Nicolas Hayek, profits, results, sales, Swatch, Swiss watch industry