The LVMH Group, as it is officially known, is making a big push in 2024 to gain market share in the global luxury watch industry, and they are kicking that effort off with a newly formed watch division and a curated selection of higher-priced watch models.
If you’re not already familiar with LVMH, you’ve surely heard of the two companies that make up their initials: Louis Vuitton and Moët Hennessy.
The LVMH Group is a French multinational conglomerate that was created in 1987, and founded by French investor Bernard Arnault, Alain Chevalier who was the CEO of Moët Hennessy, and Henry Racamier who was president of Louis Vuitton. They set out to create a French holding company with a focus on the luxury goods industry.
Today the company is composed of more than 75 brands that fall into one of the five sectors of the luxury industry: Wines & Spirits, Fashion & Leather Goods, Perfumes & Cosmetics, Watches & Jewelry and Selective Retailing. Those five sectors contributed to the LVMH Group’s $92.83 billion in sales in 2023, giving the company a market cap of $439.89 billion.
LVMH owns ten companies that either specialize in watches or have their own line of high-end watch brands including Louis Vuitton, Chaumet, Hublot, TAG Heuer, Zenith, Dior, Bulgari, Tiffany & Co., Fred, and Repossi.
The global watch market was estimated to be $97.22 billion in 2022, and expected to reach $148.50 billion by 2031, with a growth rate of 4.82% CAGR between 2023–2031, according to Straits Research.
LVMH’s jewelry and watch division posted sales of $11.8 billion in 2023, and now they want to expand that with their newly formed LVMH Watches group, headed by the LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault’s 29 year old son, Frederic Arnault, who will now be the CEO of LVMH Watches, which will be comprised of their three largest watch companies including TAG Heuer, Hublot and Zenith brands. Together those brands had an estimated $2 billion in sales last year.
LVMH Watches will focus on both high end super-spenders who have shown an appetite for investing in authentic, reputable and timeless brands like Bulgari’s coveted yellow-gold Serpenti Secret watches that retails for $350,000. Another focus will be on women’s watches catering to more self-made women in addition to those that come from families with generational wealth. LVMH is especially interested in the increasing power women have demonstrated in the luxury goods market in terms of their independence, autonomy and purchasing power.
Already, LVMH Watches has a hit on their hands with their new TAG Heuer that uses lab-grown diamonds in their Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde Chronograph Tourbillon watch, which is priced at around $500,000, and has a two year waitlist.
It’s good to be luxury brand LVMH these days.
LVMH takes aim at $30 billion watch market with high-end, reinvented pieces