If ever there was any doubt, Rolex still commands a large share of the secondary watch market—the global resale ecosystem of pre-owned and unworn timepieces outside of official authorized dealers. But those sales figures are shifting, according to a new report from luxury watch marketplace Chrono24.
Rolex commanded about a third (specifically, 30.5 percent) of all sales on the online watch marketplace in the second quarter of this year, and even more remarkably, the Rolex price index is up by 55 percent compared to 2019 sales, Chrono24 notes. And yet, The Crown once commanded about 44.1 percent of all watch sales on the platform, a pandemic-era high in 2022.
As Chrono24 notes, “the data shows the crown is starting to slip. Rivals like Patek Philippe, Cartier, and Vacheron Constantin are quietly clawing back share at the top end.” At its current volume, Rolex continues to outpace Omega by about three times as many sales, an impressive marker considering the nearly 700,000 watches available online now Chrono24.
The marketplace also remains ruled by relative scarcity, Chrono24 says. Secondary market prices continue to soar for the now-discontinued, utterly covetable Rolex “Pepsi” GMT-Master II, Chrono24 added. And particularly among enthusiastic Gen Z watch collectors, sales of Rolex timepieces on the resale market have dropped 30 percent since 2022, according to the Chrono24 report. As Hypebeast fittingly says, “the crown is heavy, but Rolex still wears it.”
Of the famed and now impossibly hard-to-get Rolex GMT-Master II in its red-and-blue “Pepsi” variant, the market continues to climb, and climb, according to the latest Chrono24 dispatch, with year-over-year value appreciating a whopping 23 percent to about $25,893. As to watches also valued above the $20,000 resale level, Chrono24 says that ” Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin are the fastest-growing challengers there,” disrupting the market to the tune of multiple points of share year-over-year.
At present, a vast array of eminently collectible Rolex timepieces can be found online at Chrono24, with some reselling for just over $4,000 and others commanding $10,000 or more on the secondary market. Rolex doesn’t seem to be much worse for the wear, having recently opened the world’s highest watch boutique in the Swiss Alps. The luxury timepiece giant still utterly commands attention, but according to Chrono24, it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on the right time to buy your next investment-level timepiece for a fair price.