ALT/FNDATA · Market Report
Q3 2025 Report: The Secondary Market for Luxury Watches
Auction-realized prices and the public-market backdrop
The year's quietest quarter softened further: the summer lull deepened into a near-dormant August, the marquee complications sat out the calendar, and a new US tariff front-loaded July shipments before halving Swiss exports to America by September.
The headline
The correction in three numbers
$13.1M
Q3 2025 auction value
Across 2,025 sold lots; −17% gross and −21% like-for-like vs 2024
$359,029
Top lot at Phillips
A September result; the summer quarter is the year's quietest
−56%
US watch imports, September
Swiss exports to the US after the 39% tariff took effect in August
Auction-realized prices: what watches actually sold for at the hammer, not asking prices. · 10M+ auction results · 100+ houses.
Key findings
What the quarter told us
- The year's quietest quarter softened further: Q3 2025 cleared $13.1M across 2,025 sold lots, down 17% in gross value and 21% on a like-for-like basis, the summer lull compounded by a trade shock.
- The shape was seasonal: a steady July ($4.7M), a near-dormant August ($1.2M across 167 lots), and a September recovery ($7.1M) as the autumn sales resumed.
- The top end thinned. The quarter's high was a $359,029 result at Phillips, down approximately 30% from the $513,542 Daytona that led Q3 2024; the marquee complications that anchor stronger quarters were absent from the summer calendar.
- Phillips ($5.6M) and Loupe This ($3.4M) led a quarter carried by a handful of houses, with the European mid-market supplying the long tail.
- The defining event was the US tariff. Swiss watch exports to America, front-loaded to roughly +45% in July ahead of the levy, fell 24% in August and approximately 56% in September once the 39% tariff took effect, the steepest disruption of the year.
- The listed houses were mixed-to-firmer: LVMH rose approximately 17% in the quarter and Richemont about 1%, while Swatch, the purest watch play, recovered off a multi-year low, the first faint signs of the stabilization that would build into year-end.
Year-over-year
Q3 2024 vs. Q3 2025
Q3 2024 vs. Q3 2025: sold luxury-watch lots at auction (like-for-like = the 17 houses present in both quarters)
| Metric | Q3 2024 | Q3 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sold auction lots | 1,703 | 2,025 | +19% |
| Like-for-like lots | 1,686 | 1,621 | −4% |
| Total value (USD) | $15.8M | $13.1M | −17% |
| Like-for-like value | $15.7M | $12.5M | −21% |
| Top marquee lot | $513,542 | $359,029 | −30% |
The divergence
Ahead of the 39% US tariff that took effect on 7 August, Swiss watch exports to America were front-loaded to roughly +45% in July, then fell 24% in August and approximately 56% in September. The summer's auction softness sat downstream of a trade shock rather than a demand one.
Source: Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) monthly export data.
The outlook
Three trends that will define the year
The summer lull, deepened
Q3 is structurally the quietest watch quarter, and 2025's was quieter still. The marquee complications sit in the spring and autumn Geneva sales; the summer clears a thinner, lower-value book, and August was all but dormant.
A policy shock, not a demand shock
The quarter's sharpest move was external: the 39% US tariff front-loaded July shipments and then collapsed them. The auction market sat downstream of trade policy rather than of any sudden shift in collector demand.
Stabilization, faintly
Beneath the soft print, the listed watch houses began to firm and Swatch recovered off its low, the first faint signs of the turn that the fourth quarter and early 2026 would confirm.
“A thin summer, downstream of a tariff: the quarter's sharpest movement was not in the saleroom but in the trade data, as a new levy front-loaded July and then halved Swiss exports to America.”
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Read the full report
The headline data above is free to cite. The full report is part of ALT/FNDATA Membership, which includes every quarterly market report and the Visual Analytics Hub. Inside this report:
- The full month-by-month auction breakdown (July to September)
- The macro backdrop: the 39% US tariff, Swiss exports and the equities
- Where the value cleared in a thin summer calendar
- Methodology and how to cite the data
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Source: ALT/FNDATA, “Q3 2025 Report: The Secondary Market for Luxury Watches” (June 2026). Based on auction-realized prices for wristwatches and pocket watches cleared at the auction houses ALT/FNDATA tracks, with public-market context from Q3 2025 Swiss watch exports and watch-house equity performance. © 2026 ALT/FNDATA · altfndata.com/reports/luxury-watch-market-report-q3-2025