Horological Meandering

ThomasM
[PuristS]
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Doh! I broke my own rule...

of reading all posts in a thread before jumping in with my own response. Sorry about that!

Do your rhetorical question - yes, the numbers and sales are there already, beyond just 'indicators."

Western observers and journalists seem to vacillate between "all is golden and China will save the materialist/commercial consumer consumption world" to "it's all a myth; the government is the one spending and it's not filtering down to the people."

Like most such things, the truth is neither and somewhere in the middle.

I've met and talked at length with many of the actual, true consumers of luxury goods in China today; not government "manipulators"; not officials who get Porsches and Pateks as bribes masquerading as gifts; not ex pats or overseas Chinese who only recently went back to China to partake in the "gold rush." These are homegrown locals who can appreciate Ferraris, Bentleys, Vacheron, and vintage Ch. Margaux. I was (pleasantly) surprised at how many locals I met recognized the Dufour on my wrist...

Of course there are plenty of "uncouth heathens" (notice the "quotation marks") in China today who drink their '59 Mouton with coke and ice, or use their Bentleys to replace their oxen to tow their carts (hey, what's wrong with that, anyway?) and it is all too easy to be dismissive...I recall my time in Cambridge, England, when most of my classmates still reveled in their Empire days and sneered, in their stiff upper lip way, at the uncouth, heathen "colonials"...

But I think about my experiences in Taiwan (coke and ice in '82 Margaux); in Thailand ('86 Latour from foam cups at the gym); in Singapore, Hong Kong...even (gasp) in the US. Europe? well, don't get me started about THEIR preconceptions and ignorance about Asian CULTURE and history...never been to Australia or New Zealand, but I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to find people there who don't know, don't care, about Pateks or free spung balances...

Time will tell, but in many cases, that time is now. Look at absolute market size for Bentleys; Ferraris and Maseratis; Piaget; Louis Vuitton; et al vis a vis other "developed" markets, both in absolute terms (dollars and units) and relative terms, per capita.

I have no special love of the Chinese market, and certainly don't mean to be an apologist for it. They don't need me to do that.

I just want to make sure there is a balancing point of view for what are pretty clear "conclusions" (for now, anyway)

(yes, Jack, I know you didn't mean to draw any "conclusive" conclusions, and were just sharing what you saw and heard. Apologies if I seem to be "dogging" you; I'm not, but I do care about what others take away from reading the forums, mine or others comments, intended or not.)

Cheers,

TM

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