Audemars Piguet CEO Resta Attributes Record-Breaking Website Traffic to Royal Pop Pocket Watch Collaboration with Swatch Group

Audemars Piguet's Royal Pop Pocket Watch Generates Overwhelming Response

Audemars Piguet Chief Executive Officer Ilaria Resta has reported an unprecedented response to the luxury Swiss timepiece maker's launch of a pocket watch in collaboration with Swatch. The Royal Pop, a mechanical pocket watch priced at €385 ($448) for the Lépine model and €400 for the Savonnette, went on sale on May 16.

According to Resta, the company's website received more than 10 times the visitors it normally receives in a year in just one day. The interest in the Royal Pop was so great that some Swatch stores across the world had to shut down for crowd-safety concerns and in some cases couldn't even open. The product was only available for purchase in stores, and a secondary market frenzy dwarfed that of the 2022 MoonSwatch debut.

The Royal Pop's success has come as makers of timepieces face a tough environment amid falling demand and geopolitical turmoil. Resta framed the collaboration as part of a broader push to court younger and first-time buyers. "Nobody needs a watch to tell the time," she said. "We need to preserve this wonderful industry."

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Audemars Piguet's association with Swatch had surprised some in the industry since the exclusive watchmaker enjoys a strong reputation built on scarcity. The company sold about 50,000 watches last year with a production capacity of an extra 20,000, according to a joint report by Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult. This compares to about 4.4 million for the Swatch brand, the report said.

The frenzy around Royal Pop has come as a welcome relief for the industry. Resta urged buyers to be patient, saying the Royal Pop would remain on sale for several months. Echoing a message from Swatch, she noted that the product was only available for purchase in stores, and some stores had to shut down due to crowd volumes.

The push to buy the pocket watches mirrored the chaos around MoonSwatch's March 2022 debut, Swatch said. Neither company has specified exactly how long sales will continue, and that deliberate ambiguity appears to be sustaining secondary market heat.

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According to Chrono24, the world's largest online luxury watch marketplace, daily requests on launch day reached 2.9 times the MoonSwatch peak of March 2022, and was the biggest demand event the platform has ever recorded. The average secondary market transaction price settled at €1,440 in the first days of trading, with 80% of sales falling between €1,100 and €1,850.

The halo effect extended well beyond the collaboration itself. Chrono24 reported Royal Oak demand on its platform rose 40% compared with the prior six-month average — notable given the Royal Oak sits at an entirely different price point. MoonSwatch requests surged 422% over the same period.

The black Royal Pop variant leads demand on Chrono24 by a clear margin, followed by pink and turquoise. The white variant commands the highest secondary prices despite ranking mid-table on request volume.

Audemars Piguet has announced that it will donate collaboration proceeds to a fund supporting endangered watchmaking crafts. This is in response to the loss of two-thirds of the industry during the quartz crisis, which Resta cited as a cautionary parallel.