Now with FH’s 2019 full stats in hand, I think it easier to see that - far as OF members are concerned - that article is comparing apples to oranges, and has little to do with our interests in watches. They can be found
here (country by value) and
here (regions by value and units) and most interesting
here (type of product by both unit and value year-over-year since 2013).
A few FH stats highlights as they relate to the misleading press on Apple Watch outselling the Swiss watch industry (my color commentary in
italics):
•
Overall exports by value continue to climb (up 2.6% to 20.5B francs) while exports by units continue to fall drastically (down 13.1%), explained by a continued trend since at least 2000 of high-value mechanical wristwatches selling more, and lower value watches - especially electronic watches - selling far less every year:
• Specifically, in the 2019 wrist watch sector, mechanical watches were only ~35% of Swiss sales by unit (7.2M of 20.6M), but ~83% by value (17B of 20.5B CHF),
but total mechanical sales by unit dipped slightly in 2019 (-250K units) while rising by value (+~700M CHF): this continues a broader trend toward not just more mechanicals, but more higher-end mechanicals in the >3K CHF categories (which category by both unit and value have trended upward along with the prevalence of smartwatches):
•
By value, the top 5 markets remained the same in 2019, most increasing, but 3 of those 5 are potentially subject to market effects of the coronavirus that could have significant impact on the industry in 2020:
The 2019 dip in HK shown above was caused by pre-coronavirus political unrest, and was offset in 2019 by gains in China; but 2020 has the potential to further hit HK, while also decreasing China sales (not to mention Japan, and the rest of the Asian market that collectively represents >50% of Swiss watch exports). But, if these negative effects come to be, I’d suspect they could hit electronic/smartwatch supply chains just as hard? In any event, it wont be smartwatches that explain any 2020 downturn in Swiss mechanical watches.
•
Finally, the 2019 press release contains the following curious and unexplained note: “The growth in value was almost exclusively due to mechanical, precious metal or bimetal watches priced at over 3,000 francs (export price). Other price segments, quartz watches
and steel products, in particular, declined in 2019.” Hmmm:
The data released by FH to date does not allow one to break out mechanical from quartz steel units, and so differentiate whether steel products have declined only because steel quartz unit exports have declined, or instead because steel mechanical exports also declined in either number or value. But (whatever mechanical steel watches did year-over-year by value), there was an increase in units of total precious metal/bi-metal exports at the high end value (shown by the ratio of units to value) - showing the same trend of watches flourishing at higher values.
In all: people are buying more (and more expensive) mechanical Swiss watches, and meanwhile if smartwatches otherwise generally work to only replace low-end Invicta/Fossil and quartz wristwatches, then I think everyone’s wrists are better for it.
I’d be interested if anyone’s seen the VALUE of Apple Watch’s 31M units in 2019, so as to compare those $ to Swiss mechanicals $$ - after all, units-shmunits as far as business is concerned... 
