Last year, Swatch Group boss Nicolas Hayek Jr. told Wired.com that Blancpain was initially considered for project “Galileo” but they ultimately went with their flagship timepiece, the Omega Speedmaster instead.
In retrospect, it was clearly a good decision, as the MoonSwatch instantly became the biggest success of the year in the watch world. Morgan Stanley estimated that the MoonSwatch could provide $128 million in top-line revenue in the first year, which would be a marketing success in almost any product category, especially considering it’s a $260 watch.
Hayek surely wants to grow the revenue even more in year two — while maintaining high demand — and the best ways to do that are typically through newness and exclusivity. Continuing to limit MoonSwatch sales to physical locations has so far created an air of “exclusivity” around an otherwise mass-market product, and there’s been no indication that will change any time soon.
Considering that in the Wired.com article, Hayek mentions that in addition to the Omega Speedmaster x Swatch collaboration that we all know as the MoonSwatch, Swatch also produced bioceramic prototypes of the iconic Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and Omega Seamaster 300M dive watches.
This leads us to the “newness” which we know will be needed to continue to fuel the MoonSwatch hype. So what do we think will happen with the MoonSwatch in 2023?
1 – There will be more MoonSwatch color variations offered.
2 – Omega Seamaster x Swatch collaboration, based on the existing prototypes mentioned by Hayek will come to fruition.
3 – Blancpain Fifty Fathoms x Swatch collaboration, based on existing prototypes mentioned by Hayek will come to fruition.
4 – Omega x Swatch Snoopy editions of the MoonSwatch will be offered at 2x-4x the price of the original MoonSwatch.
5 – Swatch will offer additional strap options for the MoonSwatch.
6 – Swatch will offer a bioceramic bracelet for the MoonSwatch.
This is all purely speculation, however, based on the fact that the regular stainless steel Omega Speedmaster Snoopy Editions command very high resale prices, if I had to guess that would be the move that Swatch might make next because it offers newness, maintains exclusivity, and allows the company to mark-up their best selling product even higher.
