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Published on July 19, 2007

Fashion watch brand Swatch has not benefited in any significant way from the baht's rise, the company said yesterday.

Siriwan Pongkijvorasin, brand manager of Swatch Group Trading (Thailand), said, "Local customers of fashion watches are not price-conscious or even sensitive to the weakness or strength of the baht."

Swatch is positioning itself as a fashion watch brand and not on slashing prices.

"[Our customers] would rather give more value to the brand as well as product design and quality," Siriwan said. She added that the most crucial issue affecting consumers' shopping habits was economic and political instability, which has destroyed their confidence.

"As a fashion-oriented brand, we [the Swatch Group] have no plans to cut prices despite gains from the strong baht. We instead transfer them to our customers by providing more value-added benefits, such as better after-sales service and customer-relationship and communication activities, in-store display, product knowledge, as well as staff training," she said.

Siriwan said the Swatch Group would maintain itself as a fashion and lifestyle brand. Between 250 and 300 Swatch watches will be introduced every year in four major collections - Spring/Summer, Summer Sports, Fall/Winter and Winter Sports.

Prices will range between Bt1,190 and Bt6,450, with its core customers aged between 13 and 24.

"We have been impacted by the political uncertainty in the first quarter, which affected our sales. But the situation is getting better and consumer confidence has been coming back since May," said Siriwan.

Siriwan said the company had posted better sales in the second quarter and 5-per-cent growth in the first six months of the year. She added that it was confident of achieving targeted growth of at least 10 per cent for the year.

Thailand is the sixth largest market for the Swatch Group, behind the big markets of China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The company operates six Swatch stores in Bangkok - including those in The Mall Tha Phra, Centre Point at Siam Square and CentralWorld - and four franchised stores in Surin, Surat Thani and Pattaya and on Koh Samui.

It will open its own Swatch shop in The Mall Nakhon Ratchasima next month.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation