整个钟表行业表现疲软 奢侈手表业如何才能复苏
The news for the watch industry is bad. “The headwinds are very strong — especially for watches,” warns Richard Lepeu, chief executive of Richemont, the Swiss luxury goods group whose brands include Cartier and Montblanc. The group’s sales in April 2016 were 15 per cent lower than the year before, in constant currencies.
来自钟表行业的消息不容乐观。历峰集团(Richemont)首席执行官里夏尔•勒珀(Richard Lepeu)警告称：“阻力很大，对于钟表行业来说尤其如此。”这家瑞士奢侈品集团旗下品牌包括卡地亚(Cartier)和万宝龙(Montblanc)。历峰集团2016年4月按固定货币计算的销售额较上年同期下降了15%。
Statistics on foreign sales of Swiss watches show trouble across the industry: in the first quarter of 2016, exports were 8.9 per cent lower than in the previous year, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. The trouble has been blamed on a range of factors, from China’s economic slowdown to a strong Swiss franc.
瑞士钟表产品海外销售额的统计数据显示，整个钟表行业都表现疲软：根据瑞士钟表协会(Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry)的数据，2016年第一季度的出口额较上年同期下降了8.9%。这一局面被归咎于多方面的因素，包括中国经济增长放缓以及瑞士法郎走强。
The industry’s hope is that this year will bring an improvement, particularly in the US. “The global environment is tough mainly because of the significance of Hong Kong as a market. There is an overhang of inventories, but I think the more affordable watches are already selling better,” says Scilla Huang Sun, a luxury sector specialist at GAM Investment Management in Zurich.
瑞士钟表行业寄望于今年的状况能有一定起色，特别是在美国市场。总部位于苏黎世的GAM投资管理公司(GAM Investment Management)奢侈品行业专家黄意芝(Scilla Huang Sun)表示：“全球市场环境较为严峻，主要原因在于香港作为一个市场，地位很重要。目前奢侈手表存在库存积压的情况，但我认为价位更加亲民的手表，销售情况已经开始好转。”
Even as Hong Kong has suffered, sales in Japan have been lifted by a weaker yen, which has lost 12 per cent of its value against the dollar since its 2015 low. The US this year could also offer grounds for optimism, sector experts reckon. Last year, a stronger dollar led to European purchases displacing US sales, but those effects may start to weaken.
即便香港市场形势不利，日本市场的销售额在日元走软的推动下已经有所上升，日元兑美元汇率较2015年的低点已经贬值了12%。行业专家认为，对美国市场今年也有理由保持乐观。去年美元走强导致销售额从美国向欧洲市场转移，但这些影响或已开始弱化。
“We can see that the American continent is showing great potential and positive growth,” says François Thiébaud, president of Tissot, the Swiss watch brand.
瑞士钟表品牌天梭(Tissot)的总裁弗朗索瓦•蒂埃博(François Thiébaud)表示：“我们看到，美国市场正展现出巨大潜力和正向增长趋势。”
A recovery in the US would strengthen the case for those who expect traditional luxury timepieces to ride out the challenge from smartwatches. Mr Thiébaud argues that, contrary to the watch industry’s gloomy view, the arrival of the Apple Watch has not changed US attitudes. “A traditional watch is not just about giving time, but it is also about conveying emotions related to a gift or a certain time in life,” he says. “There is nothing emotional about an electronic device.”
美国市场回暖能够支持那些认为传统奢侈手表能够顶住来自智能手表的挑战的观点。蒂埃博认为，不同于手表行业的悲观预期，苹果手表(Apple Watch)的出现并没有改变美国消费者的态度。“一块传统手表的价值并不仅仅在于提示时间，还能传递与一份礼物或者生命中某一时期相连的特定情感。而电子产品则不具备任何情感价值。”
Nobody is rushing to predict a rebound, however. “The global economy is going to be very slow this year. It may take a couple of years for the industry to pick up,” says May Ling Tham, an analyst at Euromonitor International. In April, the International Monetary Fund warned the global economic recovery had “weakened further amid increasing financial turbulence”. It expected the global economy to grow by a modest 3.2 per cent in 2016 — roughly the same as last year but less than it had expected as recently as January.
但目前还没有人急着做出钟表行业将会触底反弹的预测。欧睿国际(Euromonitor International)分析师May Ling Tham表示：“今年全球经济增长将会非常疲软，钟表行业或许需要好几年的时间才能有所回升。”国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)今年4月警告称，“全球经济复苏进一步放缓，受金融动荡加剧影响。”该组织预计2016年全球经济增速将仅为3.2%——与去年基本持平，但低于其在今年1月份发布的预测值。
In emerging markets — previously bright spots for luxury brands — “prospects across countries remain uneven and generally weaker than over the past two decades”, the IMF’s World Economic Outlook reported.
在曾是奢侈品牌业绩亮点的新兴市场，国际货币基金组织在《世界经济展望》(World Economic Outlook)中指出，“各个新兴市场国家的经济增长前景仍然参差不齐，增长势头总体而言弱于过去二十年。”
Watch and jewellery industry revenues are likely to follow such trends closely. “The health of luxury watch sales largely depends on GDP growth prospects and consumer sentiment,” says Thomas Chauvet, luxury sector analyst at Citigroup.
手表和珠宝行业的销售收入很可能将紧跟上述趋势。花旗集团(Citigroup)奢侈品行业分析师托马斯•肖维(Thomas Chauvet)表示：“奢侈品手表销售的景气程度主要取决于国内生产总值的增长前景以及消费者情绪。”
But it is not a simple correlation. Watch sales have been buffeted by currency movements. The slide in Swiss watch exports has been exacerbated by the strength of the franc (1.20 to the euro before it was unpegged in January 2015, now 1.10), which has increased manufacturing and employment costs in Switzerland. A strong dollar and weak euro have offered “greater price arbitrage opportunities for tourists and facilitated the emergence of well-organised parallel markets, particularly in Europe”, notes Mr Chauvet.
但这并不是一种简单的正相关关系。手表销售一直受汇率波动左右。瑞士手表出口额的下滑在瑞士法郎走强的影响下进一步恶化（瑞士法郎在2015年1月取消盯住欧元时的汇率为1.2瑞士法郎兑换1欧元，现在已经升值至1.1法郎兑换1欧元），后者导致瑞士境内的生产成本和雇佣成本上升。肖维指出，美元走强和欧元疲软为游客提供了“更大的价格套利空间，并有助于推动组织完善的平行市场的出现，特别是在欧洲地区”。
Sales to the Chinese, meanwhile, are still being hit by the crackdown on offering gifts to authorities as part of the country’s anti-corruption drive.
与此同时，中国市场的销售额仍然受到政府严厉打击向官员送礼的不利影响，这是中国反腐败运动的一个组成部分。
The industry’s difficulties remain particularly acute in Hong Kong, where the effects have been worsened by excessive stock levels in an overcrowded market. Swiss watch exports to Hong Kong were almost a third lower in the first quarter of 2016 than a year earlier.
手表行业所面临的困境在香港市场上依然表现得尤为突出，在过度拥挤的香港市场上，过高的存货水平进一步强化了这些不利因素的影响。2016年第一季度，瑞士对香港的手表出口额较上年同期近乎减少了三分之一。
Richemont revealed recently it was helping dealers in Hong Kong with excessive inventories by buying back products — and either reallocating them to other markets or dismantling and recycling them.
历峰集团近期宣布，正在通过回购产品的方式帮助香港境内库存过多的经销商——回购的手表要么被调转到其他市场销售，要么被拆解以后循环利用。
In a report published in April, Euromonitor forecast that in the next five years the US would cede the title of the world’s biggest spender on watches to China. “The transfer of power from west to east had seemed on course to happen earlier, but was derailed by the Chinese government’s crackdown on ostentation and extravagant gifts, and by a depreciation of the Chinese currency since 2015,” the report noted.
在4月份发布的一篇报告中，欧睿国际预计在未来五年内，美国将把全球第一大手表消费国的地位让给中国。这份报告写到：“从西方向东方的影响力转移似乎注定会在更短的时间内发生，但这一进程被中国政府严查铺张浪费和奢侈送礼的运动打乱，同时也受到了自2015年以来人民币贬值的影响。”
