US Watch and Jewelry Sales Grow Steadily in August
October 09, 24
(IDEX Online) - Watch and jewelry sales in the US are growing steadily. The latest figures, for August, from the US Department of Commerce, show a 4.9 per cent increase, exactly the same as the (revised) figure for July. June was 5.0 per cent.
It's the 11th consecutive month of growth. The trend has been upwards since October 2023, and according to wholesale revisions by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) at the Department of Commerce, by more than we thought.
Newly-published revisions show actual through-the-till transactions were higher than initially estimated for the vast majority of months since January 2019.
Sales for every month since July 2022 have, with just one exception, been revised upwards.
In some cases, those increases are substantial. For example, November 2023, December 2023 and January 2024, were reported as 3.3 per cent, 6.0 per cent and 1.0 per cent. They have now been revised to 4.8 per cent, 8.0 per cent and 2.6 per cent.
The revised figure for July is actually lower than originally reported (down from 5.9 per cent to 4.9 per cent), reflecting the fact that the July 2023 figure has also been increased.
Much of the recovery in the US is being driven by Amazon, Costco, Walmart and other multi-line retailers, which jointly account for around two thirds of all watch and jewelry sales.
Exports of Swiss watches to the US increased 7.6 per cent year-on-year in August.
Signet Jewelers, the world's largest retailer of diamond jewelry, reported a 3.7 per cent drop in same-store sales for North America in Q2 2024 (13 weeks to 3 August) together with a 7.6 per cent drop in total year-on-year sales, down to $1.5bn.
The Department of Commerce no longer provides a breakdown for specialty jewelers - so we are now using Signet as a benchmark. The graph below shows those same-store sales still in negative growth, but displaying signs of recovery. In Q4 of 2023 they were down 10.0 per cent, and in Q1 of 2024 they were down by 9.2 per cent.
Total US jewelry sales are, by contrast, in positive growth, though that rate of growth has been more or less static for the last three months for which we have figures.
Jewelry sales in the US rose by 4.8 per cent during August (no change from 4.8 per cent in July), according to revised Department of Commerce figures. Watch sales were up by 5.8 per cent, compared to 5.2 per cent in July. The overall increase for August was 4.9 per cent, as it was in July.
