Mike France is pointing out the story wall in Christopher Ward’s new headquarters: it will display the receipt for the “very expensive gin and tonics” he bought to celebrate the UK brand’s first win at the so-called Oscars of watchmaking. Its C1 Bel Canto was, last year, named the best watch priced at SFr2,000-SFr8,000 ($2,300-$9,200) at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) awards.
France, the brand’s co-founder and chief executive, thought there had been a mistake when he was charged SFr68 ($77) per drink. There hadn’t and, when we meet in late October, he jokes that he would be sending someone else to the bar in Geneva after this year’s GPHG ceremony, held on Wednesday.
This year, the brand was nominated for its C1 Moonphase in the Challenge category for watches priced at SFr3,000 or less, but the prize ultimately went to Japanese independent brand Otsuka Lotec. Regardless, 2024 has been a fruitful year for Christopher Ward.
France and Peter Ellis, both previously directors at toy retailer Early Learning Centre, founded Christopher Ward together with their friend Chris Ward in July 2004. Following early manufacturing in China, the brand started working with Synergies Horlogères, a watchmaking company in Biel, Switzerland, in 2008, and the two businesses merged in 2014. Today, the watches are manufactured at the Biel atelier, with everything else, from design to aftersales care, handled in the UK.
Last week, the UK team relocated across town in Maidenhead, south-east England, to a larger HQ: two specially equipped floors in an office block. The move comes on the back of rapid growth: in the financial year to March 31 2024, revenue increased more than 80 per cent, from £16.8mn to £30.5mn, while pre-tax profit rose from £222,000 to £3.9mn.
France attributes about 40 per cent of this growth to sales of the C1 Bel Canto, which has a sonnerie au passage complication, meaning it chimes every hour. Two 300-piece limited editions sold out within hours on launch in November 2022, and there was high demand when the model went on general release the following January.
In response, Christopher Ward, which had used small, artisanal suppliers, overhauled its supply chain, taking a 20 per cent stake in Paoluzzo, a specialist in computer numerical control (CNC) machining earlier this year, to aid manufacture of components. The brand can now produce 700 Bel Cantos a month, compared with 50 in November 2022, says France.
He is hoping for “another big spike” in sales, this time for the C1 Bel Canto Classic, released last month. This new design, available in four colours, features a laser-etched guilloché pattern on the platine.
The brand is not a one-model wonder, however. France says the Twelve integrated sports watch generates more income than the Bel Canto, while the pieces priced at around £700-£1,250 account for most of the volume. He adds that attention on the Bel Canto has prompted a “reappraisal” of the brand’s earlier achievements, such as its jumping-hour module and in-house SH21 mechanical movement.
Christopher Ward sells directly to consumers through its website and two showrooms — its first outside Maidenhead opened in Dallas, Texas, in September. If the latter proves successful, France says there will be a model to roll out across the US, its biggest market. Wholesale is “anathema” to the business, which was founded on the principle of multiplying the cost price by three, he says. France thinks the wholesale distribution model is the biggest challenge facing the watch industry at a time when consumers are “getting savvier”.
“They have access to more and more information and, if you are literally doubling your selling prices because of your distribution model, which at the very least most of them are doing, then that ultimately could be problematic,” he argues.
France anticipates similar growth in the current financial year to last year, bringing sales to £50mn-£55mn against a production volume of about 45,000 watches. He is conscious that, with fast-growing companies, “there is a danger that the tail wags the dog a little bit”. But he says the new HQ provides more space for “a different quality of conversation and then, hopefully, a great execution quality on top”. The company, which predicts its global headcount will increase by 44 to 126 by the end of the current financial year, aims to reach £100mn of revenue by 2027-28.
The brand’s fortunes are in contrast to those of fellow British watchmaker Bremont, whose new-build HQ and manufacturing and technology centre The Wing, in Oxfordshire, was designed by the same architecture practice — Spratley & Partners — that oversaw the refurbishment of Christopher Ward’s new base.
Bremont’s sales dropped from £22.1mn to £20.4mn in the year to June 30 2023 and it recorded a pre-tax loss of £14.3mn.
France, co-founder of the Alliance of British Watch and Clock Makers, a trade body of which Bremont is a member, says he respects what Bremont has achieved and hopes the brand comes out of these tougher times. “I wish Davide [Cerrato, appointed chief executive last year] and Rupert Morley, the chair, every success because, from a British watchmaking perspective, I think anybody would want Bremont to be a huge success, and we’re no different,” he says.
“We have a very different model and it’s quite tough today if you’re not doing something different in what is a very crowded market.”
The biggest challenge facing Christopher Ward is complacency, says France. “You’ve got to remain really hungry . . . I like us to think that there’s far more ahead than behind,” he says. He has a “long-held view” that the business, which donates 2 per cent of its annual sales to charity, is “a quarter-of-a-billion-pound brand”.
If it reaches that milestone, no doubt there will be more G&Ts.
