“Frederique Constant still has room to grow”

The independent, family-owned watchmaker marked ten years of producing calibres in-house with its Abu Dhabi partner Mohammed Rasool Khoory & Sons towards the end of 2014 with a press conference and an exhibition of its 15 Manufacture Calibres. Frederique Constant’s founders Peter and Aletta Stas were joined by Yousef Mohammed Rasool Khoory at the event

‘Day & Night’ sat down with CEO of Frederique Constant, Peter Stas, and Director of Frederique Constant, Aletta Stas, to reflect on the most recent milestones of the brand and business.

What brings you to Abu Dhabi?

Peter:
We are here today, at the Emirates Palace, to celebrate the ten year anniversary of our Manufacture calibres; specifically the Heartbeat Manufacture Calibre, which we started out with. We’ve asked our distributor here, Mohammed Rasool Khoory & Sons, to participate together with us in this special celebration, and thanks to our esteemed partner, we’ve had a Manufacture exhibition and press conference at the wonderful Emirates Palace. The press conference was held in order to emphasise that we now have 15 in-house calibres, following ten years of in-house manufacturing.

Please elaborate on your role in the recent Global Gift Gala in London.

Aletta:
The Global Gift Gala is organised by the Global Gift Foundation, which is a platform for charitable organisations, where for instance, celebrities such as Eva Longoria has her charity, Ricky Martin also has his foundation, and Victoria Beckham. We are pleased to sponsor this event; as you know we have been involved with charities since 2007. We have previously worked with Eva Longoria on some initiatives a few years ago, including the Par Coeur Gala in 2010, and also her foundation. We have a good relationship with Eva and feel a connection to what the foundation is doing. The Global Gift Foundation Gala that was held in London will be repeated in different parts of the world, including Dubai in December 2015.

Peter:
You know, we have been sponsoring the World Heart Federation for the past two years, but that is quite a top level charity, and we felt that we wanted to expand our reach and be involved with some other charities, where we donate relatively small amounts, like US$50,000, but where we really want to see results of where the money ends up. This is the case with Eva Longoria, because we know that the Foundation is putting the money towards schools for children, education for children. Ricky Martin has a centre in Puerto Rico, where 150 children from the streets can receive food and shelter – so these are very tangible projects. We are also involved with our own Frederique Constant Foundation in these types of direct donations, no longer through the larger charities.

The 2014 Slimline Moonphase Ladies Collection was recently introduced; how has it been received? Can you comment on the sales performance?

Aletta:
The Moonphase Ladies Collection has been very well-received, worldwide, I would say. It’s a nice additional collection for ladies; we’ve had a few of the Slimline versions for gents already, like the Slimline Manufacture Moonphase, and the Slimline Automatic, which is really doing well. So it was a good step to supplement the gents’ collection with a beautiful ladies Slimline collection. Moonphase timepieces are definitely a popular choice overall.

How do the sales of ladies’ and gents’ timepieces compare?

Peter:
The ideal percentage I would like to see of sales would of course be 50-50, however, we currently we do not know the exact balance, we approximate that it is divided between 35 per cent for women and 65 per cent for the men’s collections.

Aletta:
We must, nevertheless, keep in mind that a lot of women do prefer to wear a gents’ watch, which would certainly account for the popularity of the sales.

Despite being a young brand, you have cemented your place in the industry and have become quite established as a business; do you still see room for growth? In which areas do you see more potential for the brand?

Peter:
I still believe we have the potential to continue growing. If you compare us to other brands, and they are of course part of bigger groups, we still have room to grow. Also Alpina is still smaller than Frederique Constant, and that is a major area for growth. One of the things we do now in the GGC is to go from having a little counter in the shop, to having a shop-in-shop type of arrangement, and you will see that it really raises the presence of the brand and increases sales.

If you look at the longer term projection, we are now producing 135,000 watches per year. We have set ourselves a three to five year goal, maybe more towards the five-year goal, where the production should be at around the 250,000 watches. This increase in sales will come primarily from the US and countries such as India, Indonesia, more from China as well – a big part of that should come from developing countries.

When last we spoke, you had just launched the “Live your passion” book; did it achieve what you hoped it would?

Aletta:
For me, it has been very well received and we are extremely happy with the on-going sales. Currently, we have exceeded our expectations and are in the third round of printing the book. We have sold far more than we thought we would, and it has also been a good tool for brand building.