SHANGHAI WATCH GANG

An issue that brands occasionally skirt around is that most of the luxury watches on the planet at any given time are being bought by Chinese people. And this is not limited to the Chinese in mainland China. For example, the figures you see for watch sales in any given major European capital are being driven by Chinese tourists, while the stellar growth seen in Australia can be attributed to both visiting and Australian Chinese. I would hazard a guess that Chinese Americans represent a disproportionally large percentage of local American watch purchases and Singapore – one of the commercial meccas for the luxury watch world – has a population that is largely Chinese.

I have always believed there are two reasons for this. First, it is deeply ingrained into our culture that a watch is one of the most important objects you should own. It is a priority in life to have a quality watch. The second is, of course, our deeply acquisitional nature, which in some ways is profoundly connected to the Confucian concept of mien-tzu or face, but let’s also be honest… buying things is fun. It just feels awesome.

Just a few years ago there were two types of Chinese buyers. The first was the international buyer, a person who is ethnically