A great number of today’s watch brands will not be here in 20 years. Easily 50% of today’s watch companies could disappear in 20 years without surprising me. The brands that remain will be those who have been able to capture the remaining traditional wristwatch market, which exists mostly as status items, collectible art items, and jewelry-style symbols of taste and wealth. Other remaining watch brands will be those who have possibly entered the smartwatch market in whole or in part (meaning they might also still produce traditional watches). It’s possible that “smartwatches” won’t be referred to by that name in 20 years, merely being called “watches.” Traditional watches, which we today call “watches,” might potentially adopt some new name to designate their updated status.
Where does that leave luxury in the future? Actually, not in too different a place as it is today. People will still desire names and designs which suggest historic or timeless taste, excellence, success, or simple reliability. The implication is that the old names in watchmaking will still have value to luxury consumers, just perhaps not for the original products they sold. We’ve seen this plenty with other luxury brands. Hermès is extremely popular with luxury seekers, but how many of its consumers purchase horse saddles? Louis Vuitton is one of the most powerful luxury makers in the world, but how many people carry around its leather trunks? If a brand like Tissot were to fade away as a traditional watch manufacturer, I don’t see why it couldn’t be resurrected as a smartwatch company. The consumer would expect that a watch company would make a contemporary product, and not some vintage tool that no longer has even as much fashion relevance. The Omega of the future could easily be what we call a smartwatch today without violating consumer expectations or the brand’s legacy.
It is specifically because these old names in watchmaking have (at times) such colorful histories that they would be attractive purchase targets for tech companies in the future. I’m not saying that all smartwatches will leverage legacy watch branding for consumer success, but I am guessing that at least a few will. My guess is that the smartwatch as a product category will grow large enough that there are dozens of good choices in the market. This is of course some years off, but once technology standards become more universalized and the basic mainstream utility of a smartwatch becomes understood (think of a car, for example) then product differentiation will be about aesthetics, materials, and construction.