Swiss firm is the one to Swatch

Swatch Group, the world’s largest watchmaker, yesterday said it was confident of achieving 5-10 per cent sales growth in 2012 and shrugged off the impact of the strong Swiss franc to post record sales in 2011.

Dampening expectations of a slowdown in the watch industry, the firm said it experienced the strongest turnover in the group’s history in December, while all regions and price segments had got off to a positive start in January. The group said sales in 2011 rose 21.7 per cent at constant exchange rates to SFr7.14 billion (£4.9bn).