Dubai: Swiss watch exports worldwide may have recorded a 14th straight month of decline up to and including August, but that’s not stopping the luxury brand Franck Muller from using the downtime to work on its Middle East presence.
“We have been in the region for a while now, but to be honest we never concentrated on this market because we were focused on developing Asia — Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore — where the brand is now established,” says Erol Baliyan, director for the Middle East, India and Africa. “We only started to focus on the potential of this region, particularly the UAE, in the past three to four years.”
Franck Muller is a relatively new brand in an industry that venerates heritage and century-old traditions. The brand carries the name of the 48-year-old Swiss watchmaker who made the horological universe take notice of his audacious creations in the 1980s, a time when the industry was still recovering from the throes of the “quartz crisis”.
A prodigious talent, Muller was credited with popularising tourbillon wristwatches. A tourbillon is a sophisticated device designed to compensate for timing errors in mechanical watches caused by the effects of gravity. Traditionally seen in the back of the watch, Muller made it visible on the dial for the first time in 1986.
By the late 1980s and 1990s, Muller built a name for himself in the industry and his creations were worn by the likes of Elton John and Demi Moore.
His watches are instantly recognisable thanks to a distinct tonneau-shaped case, numeral design and stand out because of their mechanical ingenuity. It may be worth pointing out here that the brand has 65 patents to its name, remarkable for a company that was established within the past 25 years.
Headquartered in the town of Genthod outside Geneva, the Franck Muller Group is privately owned and does not release sales data. Other brands in the portfolio include Pierre Kunz, European Company Watch, Rodolphe, Martin Braun, Barthelay, Backes & Strauss, Pierre Michel Golay, Smalto Timepieces and Roberto Cavalli.
“When we started, the Middle East was about 4 per cent of our total turnover. In the past two years, we have doubled this. In the next two years, we want the region to contribute up to 15 per cent of our business,” says Baliyan.
Franck Muller opened its first boutique at The Dubai Mall last year. According to Baliyan, two more are set to open in Dubai. The brand already has five points-of-sale in Abu Dhabi. “We also plan to open an exclusive boutique in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”
Baliyan reckons the region has not done as well as it should have because of a lack of awareness about the brand. “The Middle East was not aware of the breadth of our collection. I don’t think there are too many brands out there that have as many variations as us,” he explains.
Vanguard, a distinct tonneau-shaped watch and a best-seller in the region, is a good entry point into the brand at Dh34,135. At the other end of the spectrum, the Aeternitas Mega 4, the most complicated wristwatch ever built with 36 different complications, can set you back about Dh10.4 million a piece in platinum. One of these timepieces was sold to a collector in Bahrain.
Last year, Franck Muller produced a UAE edition complete with the coat-of-arms of the country on the dial and limited to a production of 44 pieces in titanium, carbon fibre and gold cases. “People were very pleased, there was an emotion behind it. We are mostly sold out the titanium and carbon fibre models,” says Baliyan.
Baliyan believes the regional business hasn’t had too much to worry about despite the industry going through one of its worst phases in recent history. “We started producing more affordable references during these times. We have a very wide collection. That’s one of the reasons why we are relatively better off during this slowdown.”
— The writer is the Editor of WatchTime Middle East
