Rolex: Property buys pay off as UK profit nears £100m
Profit at the UK arm of luxury watch brand Rolex jumped towards the £100m mark during its latest financial year thanks to a trio of investment properties.
The London-headquartered division has reported a pre-tax profit of £96.2m for 2024, new accounts filed with Companies House have revealed.
The total is up significantly from the £65.8m Rolex achieved in the prior 12 months.
The results also show that the firm’s turnover increased from £685.2m to £701.5m over the same period.
The latest rise means Rolex’s UK sales have risen for 18 years in a row.
A statement signed off by the board said: “This sales increase and related profit increase was largely due to the annualisation of the rental income generated from the three investment properties acquired towards the end of 2023.”
Rolex rivals shine but theft remains high
The results come after Morning Wire reported in August that sales at the Europe, Middle East and Africa arm of luxury Swiss watch brand Richard Mille had ticked past a major milestone as its growth streak continues.
The London-headquartered division posted a turnover of CHF 404.4m (£371.2m) for 2024, up from the CHF £378.7m it achieved in 2023.
Its pre-tax profit also grew in the year from CHF 147.1m to CHF 158.4m.
A month before, Morning Wire also reported that sales luxury watchmaker Christopher Ward jumped by 50 per cent in its latest financial year fuelled by huge growth in the US.
The business posted a turnover of £45.3m for the year to 31 March, 2025, up from the £30.5m it achieved in the prior 12 months.
The previous total was itself a huge rise from the £16.8m the firm reported for the year to March 2023.
This summer, new data revealed that the theft of luxury watches remains a significant risk for owners despite the rate of recovery jumping in the last year.
In the first six months of 2025, The Watch Register located 607 lost and stolen watches through its global database, a 26 per cent increase on the same period in 2024, the company found.
Watch thefts have been on the rise despite overall robbery rates falling, with at least four stolen watches reported in the capital every day, according to the Met Police, although the body has acknowledged that this number could be “significantly higher” due to a low reporting rate.
The total value of luxury timepieces stolen topped £1.6bn last year, with The Watch Register founder Julian Radcliffe ascribing the spike in thefts to the “ease” of selling and transporting the stolen goods.