Editor’s Note
This analysis of Chrono24’s 2025 Market Review highlights a key aesthetic shift in the pre-owned luxury watch market. While sporty models remain dominant, the data reveals growing collector appetite for refined elegance, particularly through jewelry-inspired colors and romantic complications like the moon phase.
Luxury watch e-commerce platform Chrono24 recently released its “2025 Market Review” report. Based on millions of transaction data points from the platform, the report indicates that while sports models remain the sales pillar, collectors are increasingly favoring refined and elegant designs over purely tool-watch aesthetics.
Here are the key findings of the report:
In terms of shape preference, demand for rectangular cases grew by 9.3% compared to 2024, challenging the dominance of round cases.
In terms of color preference, while standard blue and black dials remained popular, demand for “jewelry-grade” colors surged significantly.
Regarding classic complications, the popularity of the moon phase function soared by 15.3%.
“Dress” watches gained favor. Cartier benefited from this trend with an 8.3% year-on-year growth, driven not by new releases but by sustained collector demand for classic Santos and Tank models.
While the overall market stabilized, some historic brands achieved double-digit growth:
High-End Market Winner: Vacheron Constantin surpassed its “Big Three” competitors Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet, increasing its market share by 13.4%. The Overseas collection alone grew by 17.3%, successfully meeting consumer demand for versatile luxury watches.
Comeback Brand of the Year: IWC saw sales increase by 14.4%, primarily driven by strong performance from the Pilot’s (+10.0%) and Ingenieur’s (+90.9%) collections. This double-digit growth indicates a renewed consumer appreciation for watches focused on engineering, offering accessible pricing without favoring ultra-high-end brands.
Consistent Performer: Tudor maintained its growth momentum with an 8.7% sales increase, with its Black Bay collection leading in the sub-$5,000 price segment.
Rolex maintained its leading position in market sales volume but showed a normalization trend in 2025, with its share of secondary market sales slightly declining by 3.3%. Rolex’s solid performance indicates that the frenzied selling behavior seen in earlier years has subsided.
However, Rolex still dominates industry conversation. The launch of the Land-Dweller collection immediately triggered a surge in search volume.
EveryWatch’s report notes that by the end of 2025, the strategic question was no longer whether to participate in the secondary market, but whether to actively shape the speed and structure of its liquidity. Among many brands, only Rolex has substantially intervened in the secondary market sales of its watches, launching the Certified Pre-Owned (RCPO) program in 2022.
By 2025, RCPO sales totaled $590 million, accounting for approximately 11% of the total value of pre-owned Rolexes sold through non-authorized channels. Sales increased by 204% year-on-year.
The United States was the world’s strongest-performing region. Comparing Q4 2024 to Q4 2025, the average transaction price in the US market increased by 8.43% (in USD).
Europe performed steadily, with price changes of 0.28% (in EUR).
EveryWatch’s report, by comparing the performance of individual models listed and sold by thousands of primary retailers, major secondary market players, and all leading auction houses, listed the top five brands by pre-owned watch sales value in 2025:
Rolex continued to dominate with a total value of $5.7 billion in 2025; Patek Philippe ranked second with $2.2 billion in sales; Audemars Piguet ranked third with $1.6 billion; Omega ranked fourth with $697 million; Richard Mille ranked fifth with $672 million.
Among them, Rolex’s DateJust collection was the world’s best-selling watch, with sales of $1.278 billion; Rolex’s Daytona collection ranked second with sales of $1.275 billion; Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak collection ranked third with sales of $949 million; Patek Philippe’s Nautilus collection ranked fourth with sales of $817 million.
Omega’s flagship Speedmaster collection ranked 12th in secondary market sales, with total sales of $222 million. Cartier’s highest-ranked Tank collection placed 21st, with sales of $111 million.