I am not a conspiracy theorist by any means but..... I read that Forbes & Brand Z and others claim that Rolex produces 800,000 watches per year. They did not give a breakdown on metal nor model but if we went to the lower end of the scale and said 25% were desirable SS models, thats still 2 million over the last 10 years.
Where are they all because they are never in the Rolex boutique. I travel extensively with my job and always call the Rolex AD where I am going prior to arrival and I hear the same story every time without fail, zero stock. Now, I don't know if I would want whatever they have for myself but I do have a wide circle of friends who would love an SS at retail. Prior to the pandemic I was in India, I called every boutique and was told no, I was kindly re directed to a grey market shop who wanted the funny money you can pay on CH24. I bought an Omega FOIS instead, its my Bangalore Speedy
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We hear a lot that Rolex has a very specific system for distribution to places where demand is higher and I understand this. I live in Luxembourg which per capita is a bloody rich country, not everyone but in general most have disposable income. There are only 660,000 inhabitants and we have more Porsche, Ferrari, G wagons etc here than the Republic of Ireland which by population is about 7 times the size, so people have money to spend and there are a lot of Rolex's here. I always stop people and 99 times out of 100 the reply is: A. I bought it second hand B. I bought it from a friend or C. I paid grey market prices for it.
So what's going on and more importantly where are they all going.
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