Rolex has increased prices for some of its precious metal watches in the United Kingdom by 4% following a surge in the price of gold to record highs.
According to information on the Swiss watchmaker’s UK website tracked by Bloomberg News, the retail cost of the Rolex Daytona chronograph in white gold has risen 4% to £38,700 (S$66,622) from £37,200 as of June 1.
Similarly, the price of a yellow gold GMT Master II has jumped to £35,400 from £34,000.
Country-specific prices for timepieces made by Geneva-based Rolex can be viewed as an indicator of a country’s economic strength. The world’s leading luxury watch brand produces over one million watches annually, with sales exceeding 10 billion Swiss francs (S$15 billion).
The price of gold has surged 14% this year, reaching an all-time high of US$2,450 an ounce in May, driven by optimism that the US Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates. The British pound also rose last month to its highest level against the euro since August 2022.
A spokesperson for Rolex in Geneva declined to comment on the price changes.
Rolex typically raises prices for its watches once a year, usually in January. While it increased prices in the UK by approximately 4% for some models at that time, including some steel watches, it left US prices unchanged.
Due to major currency fluctuations, Rolex raised prices twice in the UK in 2022, in January and September, as the pound plummeted to its lowest level against the US dollar in decades. Rolex also increased prices in European countries twice that year.
