Fossil CEO: Wearables Smothering Swiss Watch Business

itwbennett writes: I think technology and the whole idea of wearables ... has taken some of the oxygen out of the Swiss business,' Fossil CEO Kosta Kartsotis told analysts on a call to discuss the watch maker's second quarter results. These new competitors, along with other factors like a strong U.S. dollar, contributed to Fossil's quarterly revenue decline, Kartsotis said. Last week, a report from market research firm NPD Group claimed the Apple Watch was partially behind the largest slump in U.S. watch sales since 2008.

Comments

Shed no tear for the Swiss

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is a good thing if bad things happen to Switzerland. It started out as easily defendable mountain fortresses. Once they figured out there is not much money to be made by robbing passers by. Then they realized acting as a neutral party to guarantee safe exchange of european noblemen prisoners for ransom they get a bigger cut. Some evolution took place, those fortresses of too greedy Swiss that took all the ransom and killed all the parties withered away. The ones that had the reputation, "they take 25% of the ransom money but they don't kill you and return your prisoner safely" thrived. Then they became the neutral bankers where people could protect the assets from seizure from local monarchs. They made money by allowing criminals of all sorts, Nazis, arms suppliers to Nazis, tinpot dictators of the third world looting their own countries to launder their money and get respectability.

Now that cancer has metastasized and many other tiny countries that do not have the natural defenses of Switzerland are offering similar money laundering facilities. If their watch and clock industries die, if their chocolates and cheeses go out of fashion it would be a good beginning. But death of their banks is what we are really rooting for.