From today, Rolexes are even more expensive

It is well known that a Rolex is forever. Perhaps this is why the Swiss luxury watchmaking giant began 2025 with a power move: a price increase for its watches, with hikes of up to 8% for models made with precious materials such as gold. This increase is driven by rising raw material costs, inflation, and the continuous pursuit of exclusivity that the brand rightly feels compelled to reaffirm in a luxury market where many brands are rethinking their pricing systems. In any case, this substantial price hike for top-of-the-line models is due, beyond geopolitical and macroeconomic factors, to the fact that in 2024 gold saw a 27% increase in value, the largest annual rise in the past 14 years. This had a direct impact on Rolex's gold models, such as the yellow gold Day-Date, whose price rose from €41,000 to €44,200, or the GMT-Master II, which increased from €41,300 to €44,600. Overall, however, and according to a previous analysis by BoF, the luxury watch market appears to be splitting: on one side, the ultra-luxury of brands like Rolex or Patek Philippe, and on the other, the world of watches under €1,000, where a fierce battle is being fought between traditional models and increasingly popular smartwatches. 

The price increase, however, did not affect all models equally. While watches made from precious metals saw their prices soar, the more classic and “accessible” (relatively speaking) stainless steel models are pricier but not excessively so. For instance, the Cosmograph Daytona in steel, one of Rolex’s bestsellers, saw its price rise by just 3%, from €15,500 to €16,000. Similarly, the iconic Submariner experienced a slight increase of 1.6%, from €9,350 to €9,500. This differentiation in price hikes seems to be Rolex’s strategy to strike a balance between exclusivity and accessibility, while also signaling to its discerning clientele that higher prices are not unjustified or dictated solely by superficial repositioning strategies but are linked to material costs. In any case, price increases in the luxury watch market are nothing new: in the world of timepieces, as in fashion, raising prices can be a way to enhance the perceived value of the product, especially in a market where demand often exceeds supply. 

Rolex produces more than one million watches annually, with an estimated revenue exceeding 10 billion Swiss francs (around 11 billion dollars). Despite this, the Rolex market is dominated by often lengthy waiting lists and customer relationships that last entire decades – if not entire generations. In recent years, the brand has implemented price hikes in Europe and the UK due to currency fluctuations, as in 2022, when the Swiss franc significantly strengthened against the British pound and the euro, requiring Rolex to balance local and international strategies.