Rendez-Vous

JEAN-PAUL GIRARDIN

BREITLING, VICE-PRESIDENT

Times are difficult to make forecasts. We have to active, reactive, fast and flexible. Being one of the few remaining independent family owned Swiss companies, we can move very fast and adapt easily. Breitling is very well prepared to deal with these challenging times. We have been making investments in product creation, manufacturing and distribution. If you compared to 3-5 years ago, it’s a very good quarter but if you compare to 2008 and 2007, then we are down. Maybe these two years are quite unusual ones. We are targeting the upper end of two-digit growth.

Europe has been a very good market for us. Traditionally, our strong markets have been Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and the UK. The single largest market is the US. Asia, especially Japan, has been a good market. We are doing well in eastern Europe. We need to make quick inroads into China and India as both these markets have strong potential. The brand is doing quite well in India. In our niche, we don’t have any peers. In India, the watch culture is ingrained into the mindsets of consumers. We have 12 points of sale in India.

Breitling has come to India directly and this proves that we are serious about this brand’s future. We shall continue to increase the market awareness of the brand. We shall continue our marketing and distribution expansion plans. We need to education the trade on various nuances of the brand. We shall support the consumer and trade fully. The new products showcased at Baselworld 2009 will be in Indian stores by this festival season. The Chronomat B01 is equipped by our in-house first mechanical chronograph movement, which has been developed by our product development team. We can now produce 30,000 pieces every year. For the first time in 125 years, we are launching in our in-house movement.

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