Tracking the Timepiece Market's Movements

Three young watch aficionados in Italy wanted to make the watch-buying process more accessible for fellow enthusiasts. The result was WatchAnalytics, a website that displays the market trends for thousands of timepieces. The trio — Francesco Boni, Francesco Bortolan and Stefano Fusai, all 23 and from Milan — launched the site in November 2022 with an algorithm they’d developed to estimate the price of each watch. Using multiple online marketplaces, the algorithm takes sale prices, listing prices, bid prices, the condition of the watches, and other factors into account, Bortolan explains.

“WatchAnalytics was born out of our shared passion toward the world of watches,” he says. “Since we were all friends, we often found ourselves discussing watches, and a large part of the topics of our conversations were about the watch market that was growing. From those chats, we got the idea.”

The platform isn’t a marketplace; rather, it provides timepiece-lovers with information on which to base their buying decisions. It aims to help prospective purchasers get an accurate watch quote in an easy and user-friendly way.

“Our goal is to make the watch market as transparent as possible for those who may not normally have access to curated and accurate data,” Bortolan elaborates.

Regarding current trends, he says, “the market in the last six to eight months has experienced a rather steep price drop, especially for those watches that had performed so well in recent years. The drop mainly involved sports models of the most renowned brands, such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet. Yet despite the descent, many of these models are still being sold at prices well above list.”

Here are four of the top models on WatchAnalytics as of March 2.