12 Of The Biggest Luxury Watch Brands, Ranked By Sales

The humble wristwatch isn't the essential gadget it once was. Now, most people can check the time simply by looking at their phone. Precision-engineered luxury watches can still keep time very accurately, but most buyers purchase them because of craftsmanship and status.

Some watchmakers have been particularly adept at evolving their product ranges to suit these changing buyer preferences, and as a result, they have grown their annual turnover substantially. These 12 luxury brands are the biggest on the market according to 2025 estimates published by Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult, with each one having an annual turnover of at least CHF 500 million ($627 million). While it's a myth that all luxury watches have to be eye-wateringly expensive, many of the biggest watch brands still require their customers to have deep pockets to get the most desirable models.

It might be one of the world's biggest luxury watchmakers, but Hermès isn't just a watch brand. It's arguably most famous for its Birkin handbag, which was created for the actress Jane Birkin, and also makes a range of other leather and silk products alongside a clothing line. Thierry Hermès established the fashion house in 1837, but it only produced its first watch in 1912. Even then, it wasn't commercially sold — rather, it was a one-off piece designed by Thierry's son Émile Hermès for his daughter.

Today, Hermès has evolved into a global fashion powerhouse with almost 300 stores and a diverse watch range. At the lowest end of its range, you'll find watches that cost a few thousand dollars, but at the top end, a new Hermès watch can set you back the kind of money you'd usually spend on a new luxury car.

The French brand has also collaborated with Apple to produce the Apple Watch Hermès, which starts from $1,249. It's based on a Series 11 Apple Watch, and the upgrades are cosmetic rather than technological. Buyers can pick between the 42mm watch or the 46mm watch, with the latter costing $1,299.

Hermès is far from the only luxury watch brand to have jumped into the smartwatch industry. Several other prestigious names offer their own range of horological gadgets, including TAG Heuer. The Swiss brand's smartwatch range is even more expensive than the Hermès Apple Watch, and yet its appeal is somewhat limited.

Buyers looking for the most capable smartwatch have plenty of options available at a far lower price, while TAG Heuer enthusiasts interested in the craftsmanship and engineering precision of the brand's traditional watches aren't going to want to strap a screen to their wrist. Nonetheless, the brand continues to offer a range of Connected Calibre watches that can cost more than $2,000.

Elsewhere in its range, models like the Carrera and the Formula 1 continue to form the core of its appeal. The brand has been around since 1860 and was originally called Heuer after its founder, Edouard Heuer. Techniques d'Avant Garde bought the brand in 1985 and renamed it TAG Heuer. Since 1999, the brand has been majority owned by LVMH.

Another storied Swiss watchmaker, Tissot has been producing timepieces since the 1850s. It's one of the cheaper luxury watch brands on the market, with its entry-level watches starting from around $300 while its priciest models cost $3,000 or more. Today, it's owned by Swatch, but it started out as a small family business run by father-son duo Charles-Félicien Tissot and Charles-Émile Tissot. Since 1930, it's been part of the same group as Omega, another major brand that's presently owned by Swatch.

The company is based in Le Locle, the same Swiss town where it was founded, and its core models today include the Seastar and PRX. It might be a familiar name to sports fans and watch enthusiasts, since Tissot sponsors a range of elite-level series, including the Tour de France and the NBA. According to the Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult report, Tissot also sells the highest volume of watches of any brand on this list, with more than 2.5 million examples sold in 2024.

Tissot has a surprisingly long history with smartwatches, with its T-Touch first hitting stores in 1999. That watch featured a touchscreen and included features like a compass and altimeter, which were unique at the time. Tissot continues to offer a line of T-Touch watches alongside its mechanical watches, with prices starting from around $1,150.

Founded by Leon Breitling in 1884, his eponymous company has become one of the top ten global luxury watchmakers. Breitling set up shop in St. Imier, a town in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. Less than a decade later, he moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds, where Breitling still makes watches. The company expanded quickly, making watches for both professional and personal use.

Among Breitling's early customers were the Swiss police, who bought his Vitesse chronograph. The dial of the Vitesse measured speed rather than time, helping the police to measure the speed of motorists and issue speeding tickets to those who exceeded the posted limits. By the 1940s, the Breitling company had been passed down through its founder's family and focused on both fashion and function. Breitling produced everything from timepiece money clips to women's brooches.

Its current-day lineup isn't quite as diverse, although it still caters to both professionals and watch enthusiasts. Collectors can pick from models like the Premier and Avenger, both of which were originally designed as aviation watches, or dedicated fashion watches like the Top Time. Its cheapest watches start from around $3,500, but its priciest models can cost in excess of $80,000.

Vacheron Constantin is only a small brand by sales volume, making around 31,000 watches in 2024 according to the latest Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult report. However, high prices mean that it's one of the top-grossing brands in the market overall. Jean-Marc Vacheron founded the brand in 1755, making it the world's oldest watchmaker in continuous production. It took on its current name in 1819, when François Constantin joined the company.

Unlike many other major watchmakers, Vacheron Constantin has not branched out into smartwatches, branded accessories, or extensive collaborations. Its modern range remains strictly focused on traditionally constructed but technically complex models. Its most boundary-pushing models can feature dozens of complications, but even the most dedicated collectors will struggle to get their hands on one. Its rarest creations are produced in single-digit figures, with just seven examples made of the 2005 Tour de l'ile. Prices for its watches vary considerably, but its most desirable models can fetch hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

The first brand on this list to have a turnover of more than CHF 1 billion ($1.2 billion) is Longines. The Swatch-owned brand is the world's seventh largest watchmaker according to the latest Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult report, and it's one of three Swatch brands to feature in the top ten. The brand was founded by two watchmakers, Auguste Agassiz and Ernest Francillon, with the latter being responsible for building the brand's original factory rather than remaining in a traditional small workshop.

Like many major watchmaking brands, Longines hails from Switzerland, with its base remaining in the village of Saint-Imier since its founding. Most of Longines' bestselling watch models cost between $2,000 and $4,000, although rarer and more desirable models can cost significantly more. Its cheapest Conquest models start under $1,000, while the La Grande Classique de Longines is similarly affordable — by Swiss watch standards at least — with a retail price of $1,500.

Many of the world's largest watch brands have hundreds of years of history, but Richard Mille is unlike the rest. In fact, its founder, from whom the company takes its name, only launched his first watch in 2001. From the start, Richard Mille's watches were designed to be ultra-rare, with only 17 examples of the RM 001 Tourbillon being built. The brand is by far the smallest watchmaker in the top ten highest-grossing brands by sales volume, with an estimated 5,700 watches sold in 2024, according to the Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult report.

Despite the small sales volume, Richard Mille achieved more than CHF 1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) turnover that year. Evidently, price isn't an issue for the brand's biggest collectors, who frequently pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for its creations. Its most expensive pieces retail for more than $1 million, and thanks to their extreme rarity, they can be worth even more through resale.

Antoine Norbert de Patek founded his first watchmaking company in Geneva in 1839. He met Jean Adrien Philippe in 1844, and the two men later formed a partnership. The modern name of Patek Philippe was only officially launched in 2009 — before then, the watchmaker was known as Patek, Philippe & Cie. Since the 1930s, the brand has been under the ownership of the Stern family, who have transformed it into a globally known manufacturer.

Patek Philippe's watches appear several times on the list of the most expensive watches ever sold, with a one-off Grandmaster Chime fetching a record-breaking $31 million at auction in 2019. It isn't unusual to see its rarest watches sell for millions of dollars, although most sell for much less. A budget of $50,000 should allow a collector to pick from a selection of Patek Philippe models, although, like many of the other brands here, the most dedicated collectors will have large enough budgets that price won't be a consideration.

Ever since the company was formed in 1875, Audemars Piguet has remained under the ownership of the Audemars and Piguet families. It's now the fourth largest watch brand in the world, with a 2024 estimated turnover of almost CHF 2.4 billion ($3 billion) according to the latest Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult report. It's headquartered in Le Brassus, a small village in Switzerland that lies near the border with France.

In addition to wristwatches, Audemars Piguet also makes bespoke timepieces for particularly well-heeled buyers. In 2023, the brand collaborated with Rolls-Royce to make a watch for the $30 million La Rose Noire Droptail. Four Droptails were made in total, with each one uniquely personalized by its owner. 

The Audemars Piguet in the La Rose Noire Droptail was designed to mirror the car's red and black color scheme. Collectors looking for their own AP won't need to drop $30 million, but they'll still need suitably deep pockets, because the brand's watches can easily cross into six-figure territory.

Some enthusiasts might know the Omega brand as the supplier of NASA's astronaut watches, while others might know it as a maker of diving or sports watches. Either way, there's no doubt that Omega's watches are capable and reliable tools, despite being less astronomically priced than some of their Swiss contemporaries. The company can trace its roots back to a workshop set up by Louis Brandt in 1848. His shop was located in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the Swiss city where Breitling would later set up its operations.

Its Seamaster line is among its most notable today, while the Speedmaster is famous for its associations with NASA. The cheapest new Seamasters start from less than $4,000, but the rarest variants can retail for more than $170,000. Meanwhile, a Speedmaster can set buyers back anywhere between $6,000 and more than $590,000. While the prices for their most sought-after watches are far beyond the reach of the average collector, the brand still proved popular overall in 2024, shifting more than half a million watches according to the Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult report.

Although the Cartier brand has been around since 1847, it didn't venture into the watchmaking industry at first. Cartier was primarily a jeweller in its earliest years, but began selling pocket watches in 1853. The brand launched its groundbreaking Santos de Cartier watch in 1904, designing it in response to a request from aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont. Rather than use a pocket watch while flying, Santos-Dumont wanted a wristwatch that could be read at a glance.

The Santos de Cartier turned out to be a hit with fashionable Parisians and would grow in popularity exponentially, popularizing the idea of the wristwatch in the process. Cartier still offers the model in its present lineup, with prices starting from around $5,000 and rising to more than $75,000 for a rose gold finished skeleton variant. Both the Santos de Cartier and the brand's Tank and Panthère de Cartier models feature angular dials, but buyers looking for a more traditional, rounded design can opt for its Ballon models.

Rolex is the largest luxury watch brand in the world by a huge margin. It holds a 32% market share according to the latest Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult report — for context, the second largest brand, Cartier, holds an 8% market share. Rolex reportedly sold almost 1.2 million watches throughout 2024, with a turnover of CHF 10.6 billion ($13.4 billion).

Although it has been closely connected with Swiss watchmaking since its earliest days, Rolex was actually founded in London in 1905 by Hans Wilsdorf. Originally, Rolex was a watch distributor, but Wilsdorf's determination to source more accurate wristwatches led him to work with Swiss craftsmen to create models of his own. The company relocated to Geneva in 1919 and is considered a Swiss watchmaker despite its British roots.

Even the most casual watch enthusiasts will likely be very familiar with Rolex's most famous models, with the likes of the Daytona and Day-Date forming a key part of its modern-day range. A mechanical marvel without a battery, Rolex's Perpetual rotor ensures that the brand's watches are impeccably accurate, but it's the watchmaker's global status and reputation for craftsmanship that has given it such a firm grip on the industry.

Many watchmakers don't officially publish their annual sales figures, so to rank these brands, we used data from LuxeConsult and Morgan Stanley's annual industry report. At the time of writing, the most recent report was published in 2025. Our rankings were based on estimated turnover figures published by LuxeConsult's Oliver R. Müller on LinkedIn.