Daytona wait time - cut in half!

That would test the theory it being Chinese demand causing the "problem".

I am not in a position to agree or disagree with your assumption since I have no knowledge of the extent of the demand in the Chinese market, but is there anything you can point to that will back it up? If you are correct, and the Chinese economy tanks, that might mean a significant deflation of Rolex prices. However, this theory would pre-suppose that Rolex is sending all of the stainless steel pieces they make to their Chinese market and are basically ignoring Europe, North America, and Australia. Does that really make sense?

Any proof to back this up. Figures of sales lately. Anything........

Again, your common sense theory presupposes that Rolex is deliberately ignoring the European and North American markets in favor of China based on corrupt practices. This is highly unlikely. Equally as unlikely are the theories that Rolex is simply unable to keep up with demand worldwide. That is what Rolex would like everyone to think because it sets up their SS line as unicorns. In the end the “shortage” of SS models is a supply side strategy to prevent AD’s from offloading watches into the grey market which devalues the product, and to create a false sense of scarcity that drives up prices.

Paragraphs please - hard to read on an iPad when your eyes have to go so far right and left and right and left with no break, making hard to find the next line.

Lots of ultra wealthy chinese people are willing to pay above market price to buy daytona but again, Rolex is not the top luxury watch brand.

I think rolex is doing the "right" thing not to increase production on their most popular watches. That's smart market strategy. This is true for many luxury brands. We all know what happened to Omega. I can't say the increased production/limited editions helped their brand recognition much. Same goes with Tag heuer, and so on.

Again, as a consumer, I hate what rolex/AD are doing to us but as a business, I think they are doing the right thing.

From Fratello Magazine, Jul 2018;

“Rolex produces quite a high number of watches per year. Nobody outside Rolex (or Wilsdorf foundation) knows the exact number, but our estimate is between 800.000 and 950.000 watches a year. We also think that this number is ‘dynamic’, which means they can go up and down depending on the economic climate. We’ve seen some years that weren’t easy, probably also not for Rolex. It makes us a bit hard to convince that Rolex is not able to fulfill the demand for these stainless steel models such as the Submariner and GMT-Master and especially not for models that have been around since 2008 (see an overview of GMT-Master history here) and 2010 (see an overview of the Submariner’s history here). With all due respect, it is a matter of planning capacity and perhaps scaling up the production for these models. These are not A. Lange & Söhne (or fill in an haute horlogerie brand) watche, that need a lot of manual interference and finishing.

We suspect that Rolex is only delivering in very limited quantities to their dealers partly to fight the grey market. In recent years, Rolex has sent out letters to their dealers on how to prevent selling to (grey market) dealers and speculators. Drying out the grey market by not delivering your watches to dealers might be a solution, of course. But just like organizing a strike, you also hurt the innocent with these actions. Customers that walk into a Rolex boutique or dealer and get a ‘No’ if they inquire about a GMT-Master, Submariner or Daytona. Does that make the watch even more desirable than it already is? Perhaps that’s the case for some people, and they might go for a bi-color or more accessible model (e.g. Datejust) instead. But getting a no over and over again, what does that lead to?

...In the end, it remains a bit of a mystery why certain Rolex watches aren’t available. After all, they’re a company that produces so many watches per year in-house. Could Rolex perhaps, with all the bi-colour models in stock, limit production for those and increase production for all stainless steel? We will never know for sure as Rolex remains silent. Also authorized dealers (we asked a few) keep coming back with the same answer, that the demand is simply too high for these watches. We just hope that Rolex can solve this issue and start the delivery of their stainless steel sports watches. We’d love to see it for the new models, like the GMT-Master II with Pepsi bezel, but also for longstanding models like the GMT-Master II, the blue & black version of that watch, the Submariners, etc.

We are a bit reluctant to believe that the demand is too high because this has been going on for quite a while now, so measurements could have been taken during that time. We also fear that this is Rolex’s answer to grey market, but at what cost? Rolex makes great products, incredibly reliable and attractive watches, we hope they are able to fix this issue of delivering them to the end consumers.”

Edit - I believe the sentiments in the article above to be absolutely correct. Over the years I have been a pretty astute follower of grey market prices. Several years ago Jomashop was selling Rolex submariner‘s at over 20% discount. Soon after the new distribution policies the discount fell to 8%. Today, you can definitely find a Rolex submariner at Jomashop. They are in stock and ready for delivery, but at retail. The GMT Master II Pepsi can be had there for $19,250. The manipulation of the grey market has succeeded.

I don’t think it’s much of a mystery, if mugs stop buying grey the ‘shortage’ would correct itself.

The way I see it is that Rolex can go f*** themselves. If I want a watch, I want it right f****** now. Not 5 years from now.

If you have read my earlier posts I definitely agree with you. However, the possibility strikes me that there is another potentially simpler reason for the shortage of Rolex stainless steel watches. There is a philosophical principal used to judge the credibility of statements known as Occam’s razor. Essentially, it poses the given several explanations to a problem, the simplest answer is usually the correct one. The more assumptions one makes, the further one tends to stray from the truth.

Using this principle, and applying it to the Rolex issue, the answer may simply be that the people who run Rolex are incompetent business persons. Think about it, if you owned a company and thousands of your sales people worldwide were telling you that customers were coming into their shops clamoring to pay $10,000 each for one of the items you manufacture but they are having to constantly turn them away because there isn't enough inventory, what would your answer and reaction be? Adding fuel to the fire, suppose you suddenly learned that this situation had existed for several years and none of your managers instituted any procedures to ensure that supply met the demand? In my world someone gets fired on the spot!

If you believe that Rolex simply cannot keep up with demand, then the people running that company are morons! There is no other way to look at it given the fact they have had years to respond to the problem. Please don’t respond with the nonsensical argument that Rolex does not care about profits, just brand integrity. Business is business and that is a load of crap! The only other possibility is that Rolex is conducting a calculated strategy of manipulation and as a byproduct is screwing over their consumers. Pick one, but those are your only two logical alternatives.

Saulgoodman, though I’d say the simplest answer is greymarket dealers manipulation, several dealers themselves on YouTube even explain this. Most dealers trades (one quoted like 4/5) in them aren’t even too the public.