Does the engine matter, or the shape?
On Wednesday we argued that shape is beating mechanics: the Cartier records this year were set by case designs, not by what was inside them. The same day, WatchPro published a serious case for the exact opposite. Here are both, and where we land.
Their argument. Writing for WatchPro USA, Armando Zuccali, who runs GAG London Equity Capital, argues that by 2030 the dividing line in watches will not be price. It will be who owns the calibre.
Some brands build their own calibres in-house. Most buy finished movements from suppliers such as Sellita or Tudor's Kenissi and put their own case and name around them.
His point is that owning your movement is something nobody can copy. Buying the same one as forty other brands means you are really selling a case and a logo, and over time the market prices you that way.
The history behind it is his strongest evidence. Between 2013 and 2020, the Swiss competition authority allowed ETA, the Swatch Group's movement maker, to stop supplying other brands. That split the industry in two: brands that built their own factories, and brands that queued up at Sellita and Kenissi. Where each brand landed is still playing out.
He adds that Swiss exports in the first half of 2026 were about $15.4 billion, down 0.7%, while cheaper watches keep growing. Frédérique Constant reports double-digit growth between about $900 and $3,600. His reading is that the cheap end is not a healthy market discovering itself. It is big groups building a front door, catching a buyer young and walking them upstairs later.
He also cites Chrono24 data showing in-house brands holding their resale value better. We have not been able to check that figure ourselves, so treat it as his claim rather than a fact.
Where we land: both are right, about different markets.
We were describing the top. Unique pieces, auction records, a $3.38 million Cartier with a battery in it. At that level nobody compares movements. Scarcity and shape set the price.
He is describing the middle. Roughly $1,000 to $10,000, where a buyer is looking at two similar steel watches and needs a reason to choose. There, the movement is a tiebreaker, and over years it becomes a real difference in what the watch is worth secondhand.
So the movement moat is real, and it protects the middle. Which is exactly the part of the market former TAG Heuer chief executive Antoine Pin called "under massive pressure" earlier this month. Owning your calibre does not win you the top of the market. It stops you losing the middle.
AP has already run the experiment, and at a far lower price. The Royal Pop is a $400 front door with no AP movement in it at all, and AP says its expensive watches are selling better than ever since it launched. If Resta's figures hold, a strong enough name can open the door without the engine.
Moser's Off-Grid is the next test case. It is Zuccali's front door exactly: a $4,900 entry point into a brand whose normal watches cost many times that. But it has no mechanical movement at all. If it works, it suggests a brand name with character can open that door without a movement moat. If it flops, it suggests he is right, and the name alone is not enough.
What it means for you.
Buying in the middle to keep: ask who made the movement. In five years someone will ask you that when you sell.
Buying at the top: keep asking how many exist. Those are two different markets sharing one shop floor.
Thinking about a Norqain, the young brand that signed a big UK deal with Watches of Switzerland this week: it uses Kenissi movements. By this argument its best distribution in Britain matters less than it looks.
Our position, dated. By the end of 2030, we expect in-house movements to clearly go with better resale below roughly $12,000, and to make no meaningful difference above roughly $100,000, where rarity, history and design will keep setting prices. If we are wrong, we will say so.