The first few days of 2022 have seen a considerable increase in Rolex prices, especially for steel luxury watch models. In this article, you’ll find retail price increases for the most popular Rolex watch lines.
First, given the above, it is really no surprise that retail prices of watches are increasing across the board in 2022. Second, we use Rolex as an example because in many ways it dictates the actions, sentiment, and strategy of the larger watch industry – even as recognized by other major luxury watchmakers. According to Morgan Stanley research, Rolex accounts for a quarter of the annual turnover of the entire Swiss watch industry, based on an implied retail value of CHF 8 billion in 2020. Therefore, what you are about to read about replica Rolex is likely to happen soon to the luxury watchmaker of your choice. 
One of the main reasons watchmakers need to be cautious about raising prices is that luxury watch pricing is largely a one-way street – going backward is a very painful and unsustainable experience. Why? Because it’s easy to become a discounted luxury brand, and customers quickly become accustomed to calculating and expecting bigger discounts – once you become a discounted brand with a tarnished image and pricing power, re-establishing the practice of systematically selling at retail becomes an extremely expensive and often impossible task.
In short, there are many media- to long-term reasons to exercise a high degree of caution when raising luxury prices. If there is one luxury brand that gives itself all the time in the world to plan for the long to very long term, free from any pressure from growth and dividend-paying investors – well, it is Rolex.
We should stress that Rolex’s price increases are not always timed to coincide with the new year; the company does not execute price adjustments tied to the calendar. They can occur at any time of the year, possibly several times over the course of 12 months, and as we have seen in this article, different models and collections are affected to varying degrees. In the face of such strong demand, with customers around the world clearly having the money and the will to spend more for their next Rolex watch, it is understandable that “Crown believes it is safe to raise the retail price of many of its best-selling steel luxury watches in 2022.
The question is, almost rhetorically, whether a 10% increase will be enough to cool the market slightly. At this point, we’d say “the secondary and gray markets – where many Rolex-like brand-new watches trade at prices well above their suggested retail prices – will easily absorb the difference, at least for now. On the other hand, our team totally understands the desire to conquer ownership of a particular watch and urges you not to do so and not to spend more than the retail price on any watch.
