The Market Is Declining While Lange Is Rising
The market performance of A. Lange & Söhne is growing strongly, a situation opposite to that of so many brands that have been experiencing falling prices for more than a year.
The spring of 2022 marked a big change in the luxury watch market.
In previous years, so many watches had been rising in price month after month, reaching such high values that it was inevitable to expect a retrenchment.
The dump started in March 2022 and continued until the end of last year, when a phase of price stabilization began.
Obviously the watches most affected by the market downturn were all those that had benefited most from the previous period of growth. A clear example of this is shown by our WA50 index.
The WA50 index provides an overview of the second-hand market by looking at the most iconic and most traded watches.
The chart shows what has been described above. The period of decline was rather rapid, but it did not completely cancel out the price increase that was generated in past years.
The succession of these phases brought great variations in prices, so the performance of this index shows great volatility for the most influential models, namely those belonging to the most popular brands such as Rolex, Patek, and Audemars.
There is always a strong correlation between watches, which means that if the market is positive all brands benefit and vice versa. For this reason one would expect WA50 to roughly summarize the performance of all brands that have an active secondary market.
However, there is one brand that has managed to escape this correlation to some extent and managed to weather the downturn much better than almost the rest of the market. This is the case of A. Lange & Söhne.
As can be seen from the dedicated Lange15 index, which considers the market for the most important models, this brand during the spring of 2022, when the major brands were entering a crisis, even continued its growth. The negative market situation had slight repercussions towards the end of last year, but still a much smaller magnitude than the most popular brands.
The interesting thing about this growth is that it is involving the vast majority of the brand's catalog. In the analysis below we have selected three watches belonging to three different collections: 1815, Datograph and Zeitwerk. All three models share a very strong growth in the last year, with a clear supremacy of the Datograph gaining almost 76%. These are still solid growth figures that had not been seen since 2022.
Underlying Lange's growth lies a great deal of work done by the house in recent years.
There has been great skill in launching novelties and making limited series or unique pieces, as well as implementing a tough policy on the allocations watches.
These factors have played to their advantage in conveying to the general public the prestige that has always distinguished this brand.
The Lange case, however, may also mark a reborn interest in more elegant and classic watches. Who knows if a new phase of the market will start from this brand?
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