Tag Heuer is having a stellar run this year.
January saw its return to Formula 1 as the official timekeeper, as part of the sport’s global 10-year partnership with parent group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. A new campaign in March unpacked the “Designed to Win” mentality that underpins the watch brand.
In May, the Swiss company became the first title partner of the elite motorsport’s Grand Prix de Monaco race. Then, in July, it was named the official timekeeper of the TCS New York City Marathon and it will be front and center at the elite running event on Nov. 2.
When it comes to timepieces, there were novelties aplenty, including the Carrera Chronograph that kicked off the year at LVMH Watch Week, which came with a limited-edition tourbillon version; the April return of the colorful Formula 1 model, this time in a 38mm size and a solar-powered movement, and later in the year, two takes on its Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph, one nodding to its namesake’s star race and the other in a striking crystallized titanium case.
The Geneva Watch Days saw the introduction of the TH-Carbonspring, a patented proprietary carbon hairsprings innovation a decade in the making by the Tag Heuer Lab in-house research and development hub. Its release coincided with the 350th anniversary of Christiaan Huygens’ invention of the spiral spring, a watershed moment for watchmaking.
Most recently, the Swiss watchmaker teamed with New Balance for a collaboration highlighting the fifth generation of its connected watch, the Tag Heuer Connected Calibre E5, paired with the American sportswear company’s latest running shoe.
Two-time Olympic champion and 400-meter hurdle women’s world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who is ambassador for both collaboration partners, is the face of this technologically advanced running set.
A Long-term View
Despite this raft of achievements, Tag Heuer’s chief executive officer Antoine Pin is self-effacing.
“What I am doing currently is presenting projects that have been launched not just under the tenure of Julien [Tornare], but also under Frédéric [Arnault] and even under Stéphane [Bianchi], who had himself been hired by Jean-Christophe [Babin],” he told WWD, naming four of his predecessors at the helm of Tag Heuer, spanning 25 years. “It forces humility.
“I have my role as executive but it’s one that is part of a continuity, of a team,” he added. “I’m a spokesperson but there are also others,” such as chief marketing officer George Ciz, the Lab’s head Emmanuel Dupas and Carole Forestier-Kasapi, the watchmaker’s director of high-end watchmaking and movements strategy.
What it comes down to is the nature of watchmaking itself.
“It isn’t an industry working on the short term. Nothing happens there in six months, unlike fashion, where you can build a brand in three collections,” he said. “Watchmaking is about constance and resilience.”
Take the carbon-composite hairsprings. “That was 10 years of research and development,” Pin continued. “It’s such a long period compared to today’s economic timescale.”
Staying on course despite such constraints is what has led Tag Heuer, which has been part of LVMH’s stable since 1999, to this “firework” of a year, as the executive put it.
“The brand has made efforts on the product and has been recognized for those efforts,” Pin said. “But it was time to put the house, its track record, its soul and its identity front and center.”
Underpinning Tag Heuer is a trifecta of timekeeping and innovation; an anchoring in high-performance sports, and “an unshakeable belief in the inner strength of humans and the capacity for progression, for development” for Pin.
Hence why the brand was able to successfully connect the dots between its association with Formula 1, a sport truly practiced by only two dozen racers, but also with running, practiced by hundreds of millions of people across the globe, through its connection with the New York Marathon.
Plus, reducing the Swiss watchmaker to its connection to the elite motor racing competition is “restrictive with respect to the values we carry,” Pin said.
More Than Car Racing
“This notion of mental strength can be found in any sport where concentration, the intention of winning the next point comes down to a combat of will,” he continued. “That’s why we have ambassadors across a range of fields because we express [values] that go deeper than simply an attachment to one sport or another.”
That’s helped the brand weather the post-pandemic bubble and subsequent burst. Although LVMH does not break out figures for individual brands, Tag Heuer’s turnover for 2024 was estimated at 670 million Swiss francs by Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult. According to their annual report, it also ranked 11th in the top 50 watchmakers, its highest position since 2020.
While the CEO declined to comment on specific figures or make projections for how 2025 would turn out in terms of sales, he said that “in a year that doesn’t encourage consumption and doesn’t telegraph confidence,” the brand was “doing rather well” and “had the sentiment of gaining market shares.”
Formula 1 will without a doubt keep amplifying the spotlight on Tag Heuer.
Two races into the season and the traffic to Tag Heuer stores was at “more than double-digit growth” since January, Ciz told WWD in March.
Engagement was also through the roof. On Instagram, the watchmaker has leaped from seventh place among watch brands to third in 2023, before climbing to second position last year. Since January, it’s in pole position according to measurements by Emplify, ahead of competitors such as Rolex, whose fan base is more than five times larger than Tag Heuer’s.
And interest and higher visibility has also rippled into the secondary market.
According to data from pre-owned watch retailer Watchfinder, there was a 28.7 percent uptick in Tag Heuer sales in 2024 and based on sales in the first nine months of 2025, it is set to see a 40.8 percent leap this year.
In the retailer’s 2025 analysis of the pre-owned market, the Carrera line leaped 122 spots to come in ninth place across global sales, right behind half-a-dozen Rolex references and models from Tudor and Omega.
Meanwhile, the Formula 1 watch family sits in 11th position, having risen nine places, as did the Aquaracer style. The square-shaped Monaco also saw a marked improvement in its ranking with a 19-spot rise to 23rd place.
But what the watchmaking executive attributed the brand’s enduring appeal to above all else is its image as a watch for achievers.
That can mean a younger cohort, but he defined the Tag Heuer client broadly as “achievers, people who project themselves, develop themselves and are those who do, who make their lives rich by their own efforts.”
It might sound like a cliché but that’s precisely why consumers and fans have connected with the brand, according to its CEO. “It’s at the core of all of our campaigns past and present, such as ‘Success is a mind game,’ ‘Don’t crack under pressure’ and the current one,” he added. “You have been designed to win but you have to put in the effort.”
One aspect the brand is heavily leaning into is value for money, particularly in the low four-figure price point where its entry-level models are.
Case in point: its Solargraph calibers.
“I am convinced that it was a genius move from Frédéric [Arnault] to go for solar-powered movements because it’s a technological advancement that leaves us at an interesting price point,” Pin said. “Brands that are successful today are those who have kept an accessible side while having a prestigious side.”
All this has given him a modicum of confidence in weathering challenges such as U.S. tariffs on Swiss-made products, which are currently a 39 percent levy.
“You always have to make decisions with a long-term view,” he said. “There are factors you don’t control so you have to concentrate on what you have in hand and what we have is the product.”
While he wouldn’t be drawn into revealing what’s coming next for a brand that’s firing on all cylinders, from connected watches and solar-powered movements to high complication timekeepers and even eyewear, he said the throughline would always be products that toe the line between out-there and self-evident.
“When someone tells me [a new release] is unexpected but ‘so us,’ I love it,” he said. “It’s honestly the best compliment you can give me.”
