Market evolution: Complete watch movements (CN 9108) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the European Union's external trade in complete and assembled watch movements (Combined Nomenclature code 9108) over the period 2015–2025. The analysis covers imports and exports between the EU and non-EU countries, drawing on trade values, physical volumes (in tonnes and pieces), unit prices, partner concentration metrics, and production data. The product heading CN 9108 encompasses five sub-categories: electrically operated movements with mechanical display (910811), with opto-electronic display (910812), with combined displays (910819), automatic-winding movements (910820), and hand-winding-only movements (910890). Over the decade, the EU's watch-movement trade underwent a profound structural transformation: the trade deficit widened sharply, domestic production contracted, export values collapsed while import dependence grew significantly.

1. The Widening Trade Deficit: Import Resilience Meets Export Collapse

The most striking feature of the 2015–2025 period is the dramatic deterioration of the EU's trade balance in watch movements. What was already a deficit of €−24.8 million in 2015 ballooned to €−58.4 million in 2025, a worsening of 135.7%. This divergence was driven by two simultaneous trends: steady growth in the value of imports and a sharp contraction in export revenues.

Import value grew steadily despite falling volumes

EU imports of watch movements rose in value from €65.6 million in 2015 to €74.1 million in 2025, a gain of 12.9%. However, this increase occurred even as the physical volume of imports — measured in net tonnes — fell from 83.6 tonnes to 48.7 tonnes (−41.8%). The reconciliation lies in a dramatic escalation of unit import prices: the average price per tonne climbed from €782,000 to €1.51 million, an increase of 93.4%. In other words, the EU was importing fewer movements by weight but paying substantially more per unit, indicating a structural shift toward higher-value, more complex movements — consistent with the growing share of premium Swiss automatic-winding movements.

Export values collapsed while volumes surged

The export trajectory was nearly the mirror image, but with a paradoxical twist. Export value plunged from €40.8 million to €15.7 million (−61.5%), yet the tonnage shipped surged from 38.0 tonnes to 138.5 tonnes (+264.8%). The average export price per tonne collapsed from €1.05 million to just €109,846 (−89.5%). This divergence suggests that the EU's export mix shifted away from high-value specialised movements toward heavier, lower-value units — or that a small number of large-volume, low-price shipments (possibly re-exports or industrial components) came to dominate the aggregate figure. Supplementary unit data shows a more moderate decline in piece-count exports (from 221,505 to 162,548 units, −26.6%), confirming that the tonnage spike was driven by shifts in product mix rather than a proportional increase in piece volume.

Net import reliance surged past 80%

The combination of rising import values and collapsing exports pushed the EU's net import reliance from 47.3% in 2015 to 83.9% in 2025 — nearly doubling. This metric, which measures the share of apparent consumption satisfied by net imports, signals a marked increase in the EU's external dependency for a product category that underpins the broader European watchmaking industry.

2. A Shifting Partner Landscape: Switzerland's Dominance and the Brexit Disruption

The geographic composition of the EU's watch-movement trade underwent significant changes over the decade, with concentration increasing on the import side and a dramatic reshuffling of both import and export partners.

Switzerland consolidated its role as the EU's dominant supplier

Switzerland was already the EU's largest source of watch movement imports in 2015 at €46.2 million and grew to €61.2 million by 2025 (+32.6%). Its share of total import value increased substantially, and the import-side Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) rose from 5,241 to 6,953 (+32.7%), confirming growing supplier concentration. At the same time, Switzerland remained the EU's top export destination, although shipments to Switzerland fell from €27.1 million to €8.5 million (−68.7%). This bilateral pattern — strong Swiss exports to the EU, declining EU exports to Switzerland — reflects the deeply integrated but asymmetric supply chain, where Swiss-sourced movements are assembled into watches that are often then re-exported.

The United Kingdom's trade collapsed following Brexit

Perhaps the most dramatic single-partner shift involved the United Kingdom. EU imports from the UK fell from €9.2 million in 2015 to just €122,000 in 2025 (−98.7%), while exports to the UK dropped from €5.2 million to €2.0 million (−62.6%). The timing of the import collapse — concentrated around 2018–2020 — coincides with the UK's departure from the EU customs union and single market. This represents a near-complete decoupling of UK-EU watch-movement trade, likely driven by new customs procedures, rules-of-origin requirements, and supply-chain restructuring by multinational watch groups. The volatility data confirms the UK as the most volatile import partner (coefficient of variation of 1.40), consistent with a structural break rather than normal cyclical fluctuation.

Other partners showed divergent trajectories

Several other trading partners displayed notable trends:

• China remained a steady import source (€4.8 million in 2025, −11.6% from 2015), likely supplying lower-cost movements.
• Japan grew as an import source (+75.2% to €4.6 million), reflecting the enduring role of Japanese movement manufacturers such as Seiko and Citizen/Miyota.
• Türkiye emerged as a fast-growing import partner (from €10,660 to €161,512, +1,415%), albeit from a very low base.
• France saw its exports plunge from €23.0 million to just €1.5 million (−93.5%), the largest absolute decline of any EU exporter, suggesting a major reorganisation of French-based watch-movement production or re-export activity.
• The United Arab Emirates became a growing EU export destination (+417.4%), potentially reflecting Dubai's role as a regional watch trade hub.

3. Domestic Production Decline and Segment-Level Divergence

Behind the aggregate trade figures lies a story of contracting EU production and highly uneven performance across product sub-segments.

EU watch-movement production shrank significantly

According to PRODCOM-based production data, the EU produced 606,485 complete watch movements in 2015, a figure that declined to 426,112 in 2025 (−29.7%). Production value fell even more sharply, from €19.2 million to €10.1 million (−47.5%). This decline was not linear: production dipped to a trough of 317,000 units (€8.8 million) in 2020, likely reflecting pandemic-related disruptions, before partially recovering. The faster decline in value than in volume implies that the average value per produced movement also fell over the period, consistent with a loss of higher-value manufacturing capacity.

Automatic-winding movements (910820) became the import value leader

Among sub-segments, automatic-winding movements (910820) underwent the most remarkable transformation. Their import value nearly doubled, from €26.2 million in 2015 to €44.8 million in 2025, making them the single largest import sub-category by value. This occurred despite relatively stable import volumes (around 228,000–300,000 pieces), indicating a rising average price per movement — consistent with the importation of increasingly premium Swiss calibres. In contrast, the electrically operated mechanical-display segment (910811) — the largest by import volume — saw its piece count decline from 2.53 million to 1.35 million (−46.6%) while its value held relatively steady (€32.3 million to €22.2 million), suggesting that the remaining imports were of higher unit value.

Export segments diverged sharply

On the export side, the segment dynamics were even more dramatic. Automatic-winding movements (910820) saw their export value collapse from €10.2 million to €8.0 million despite a volume shift that is difficult to interpret due to extreme year-to-year volatility. Hand-winding movements (910890) displayed a spectacular volume anomaly in 2024 (491,608 tonnes, up from ~13–50 tonnes in surrounding years), likely reflecting a one-off bulk shipment or data reclassification. Excluding that outlier, the segment's value declined from €23.6 million to €5.5 million. Electrically operated mechanical-display exports (910811) also declined steadily from €5.7 million to €2.0 million. These patterns collectively indicate an erosion of the EU's export competitiveness across nearly all watch-movement segments.

Specialisation data confirms France's dominant but declining role

The revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) analysis for 2025 shows that France (RSCA = 0.69, RCA = 5.40) and Lithuania (RSCA = 0.82, RCA = 10.18) are the most specialised EU exporters of watch movements, followed by the Netherlands (RSCA = 0.31). France alone accounts for 42.2% of EU production in this segment. However, France's export value plummeted from €23.0 million to €1.5 million over the decade, suggesting that while it retains production capacity, much of that output may now serve the domestic or intra-EU market rather than extra-EU exports — or that production itself has declined.

Conclusion

The EU's trade in complete watch movements over 2015–2025 tells a story of growing external dependency, partner concentration, and domestic production decline. The trade deficit more than doubled, driven by steadily rising import values (powered by higher-priced Swiss automatic movements) and a collapse in export revenues across nearly all segments and destinations. Switzerland consolidated its position as the dominant supplier, while the UK nearly vanished from the trade picture following Brexit. EU domestic production fell by roughly 30–48% in volume and value terms, with France — the bloc's leading producer — seeing its exports evaporate. The rising net import reliance (from 47% to 84%) signals an increasing vulnerability of the EU watchmaking ecosystem to external supply disruptions, even as the growing import share of premium movements reflects the continued strength of Swiss mechanical calibres in the European market. These trends position the EU less as a net producer-exporter of watch movements and more as a specialised consumer market integrated into Swiss-led global value chains.