An £800million turnover luxury watch retailer is to move into vacant units in Plymouth’s Drake Circus Shopping Centre in the summer of 2021 bringing several jobs to the city.
The British Land-owned mall will accommodate three new watch boutiques from the specialist Watches of Switzerland Group.
The new stores will house three prestigious watch brands: Omega, Breitling and Tag Heuer. The stores will be located on the upper mall next to Three and Footasylum.
Hoardings proclaiming the new arrivals have appeared on the first floor of the mall, around empty units previously used by shoe vendor Soletrader and quirky homeware brand Cath Kidston.
This announcement follows the recent mall openings of BOSS in December 2020, as well as the first BrewDog pub in Plymouth at the nearby, and also British Land owned, The Barcode in April 2021.
They are all welcome arrivals for the mall which lost several household names during the pandemic including Carphone Warehouse, Paperchase Top Shop and aforementioned Cath Kidston. Already, online advertisements for at least six assistant and deputy manager jobs have appeared.
Greg Lumley, centre director at Drake Circus mall, said: “The boutiques are a really exciting addition for us. It’s always pleasing to be able to announce the arrival of new brands, and especially ones of this magnitude.
“I’m sure that they will be a big hit with our shoppers, and we look forward to welcoming customers when they open their doors later this year.”
Watches of Switzerland has 15 showrooms across the UK, including dedicated Rolex and Jaeger-LeCoultre boutiques. Nine of these showrooms are in London, including in Regent Street, Oxford Street, Knightsbridge and Canary Wharf.
There are also showrooms in Birmingham, Brighton, Cardiff, Manchester and Glasgow, but none in the South West until now. There are, however, a further six outlets at Heathrow Airport, each at a different terminal, and one at Gatwick.
The FTSE 250 company has been expanding after seeing UK sales soar despite the Covid pandemic. In February 2021 it revealed a 1.5% Q3 uplift, to £186million.
Annual accounts for the year to April 26, 2020, revealed a revenue of £810.5million, up 4.8%, and leading to an operating profit of £48.3million.
The annual report said the group has “become a globally recognised specialist of Swiss luxury watches with a complementary luxury jewellery offering”.
It said that since 2014 it has enjoyed “strong, sustained, profitable growth to build a leading position in the UK” and is also expanding into the USA.
It has a long-standing partnership with the “most prestigious” Swiss luxury brands, of which the top seven account for 74% of the group’s revenue.
Its report said: “Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic the group delivered record sales and profit during the year.”
It added: “Despite the current challenges presented from the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for luxury watches has remained strong as evidenced by our online sales growth during lockdown and robust performance from out stores upon re-opening.”
The Watches of Switzerland website says: “Our customers come to us because the watch they wear on their wrist matters to them - just as it matters to us.
“They tell us no one knows the market like we do and that they would never look anywhere else for the latest collections and the best service. Because of that, some of our customers have been with us for over 50 years - we like to think of them as 'friends of the business'.
The huge Drake Circus Shopping Centre fully reopened on April 12 as the country moved into Step 2 of its roadmap out of lockdown.
To help keep everybody safe, Drake Circus mall continued to have its one way “keep right” system in place, with hand sanitising stations and enhanced cleaning regimes. All visitors must also wear a face covering unless exempt for medical reasons.
