You have just taken over the reins of Audemars Piguet. What are your
priorities?
For me the biggest priority is managing this company through what people
believe is going to be a challenging time and to understand what is really
happening. My reading for the moment is that things are not so clear in this
industry. It is known that in the watch industry things are a bit slower. Overall
the year was still reasonable. We certainly knew that after a boom in the
last four years, there was a tendency to slow down.
So, is it a correction according to you?
It can be called a correction. I think demand in the future will also depend
on how many interesting solutions and products we can deliver. We cannot
change the macro climate but we can certainly do something as a company
with innovations and new products like we are doing this year to stimulate
demand and hopefully also steer our production in such a way that we
produce the pieces that we can really sell.
The feedback from CEOs that we have been getting is that there is no
need to change strategies because these are long-term ones. Do you
believe in this too?
Yes. Otherwise you can’t call it a strategy. It would be opportunistic
behavior. If you reduce certain activities or adjust volumes to a new
equilibrium, then that is a change of strategy. That’s not for me. I do not
think we are going to stop fundamental activities in this company like the
manufacture movements.
But would you see any difference in the product mix, market mix or the
geographical market mix because some markets are more affected?
That is possible but extremely difficult to say at the moment. Everybody
is talking about the United States. It may be a little bit more affected but the
differences are not huge. |
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Audemars Piguet
CEO Philippe Merk tells Mitrajit Bhattacharya
that besides the collections
of Royal Oak and Royal
Oak Offshore, which will
complete 40 years soon,
the brand is banking on
Jules Audemars |
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