News · Hermès

Hermès grows in the third quarter, but its watch sales fall

The group's revenue rose while Watches fell 5.0 per cent as reported. Its own figures show why those two headlines must be read separately.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 3 min read · 23 October 2026

A company can have a good quarter while one of its smaller trades has a difficult one. Hermès has just supplied a clear example. In its 22 October revenue release, the group reported third-quarter sales of €4.096 billion, up 5.5 per cent at current exchange rates from €3.881 billion a year earlier. Its Watches business, however, recorded €125 million against €131 million in the comparable quarter. The contrast matters because the group figure on its own says very little about what is happening on the watch side.

A watch figure inside a growing group

Hermès reports the quarterly Watches change as a 5.0 per cent decline at current exchange rates and a 6.0 per cent decline at constant exchange rates. The latter removes currency movements using the comparison-period rates specified in the company's report. It is tempting to treat the two figures as competing stories, but they answer different questions. In this quarter the currency adjustment makes the watch decline slightly steeper, while the overall group is still growing on either basis.

For the first nine months of 2026, Watches revenue was €393 million, against €412 million in the same period of 2025. The reported decline is 4.4 per cent; at constant exchange rates it is 1.9 per cent. The difference between the quarterly and nine-month rates is important. It says the third quarter was weaker for watches than the first nine months taken together, without telling us which product, region or customer group caused the gap. Hermès does not publish that level of watch detail in this release, and it would be a mistake to fill it with a theory.

Set the watch line beside the rest of the house and the separation becomes more obvious. The nine-month group total reached €12.260 billion, up 2.9 per cent as reported and 5.5 per cent at constant rates. Leather Goods and Saddlery grew 10.2 per cent at constant rates across the nine months, while Silk and Textiles grew 7.0 per cent. These are different sized businesses, so their percentage moves should not be mistaken for equal contributions to the overall result. They do explain why a positive group headline can sit above a negative watch line.

Product praise and sales can coexist

Hermès mentions the H08 squelette in the watch section of its release, describing its April unveiling at Watches and Wonders and saying the launch was successful. That is the company's characterisation of one model, not a reported sales figure for it. The same paragraph says Hermès is expanding production capacity at its Le Noirmont watchmaking site in Switzerland by 2028. Both statements can be true while current Watches revenue falls. An investment timetable and a quarterly sales table measure different things.

The release gives no watch unit count, average selling price or split between the H08 and other collections. It also gives no Australian watch revenue. Those omissions limit what can responsibly be concluded from the table. A lower revenue number may reflect many different combinations of volumes and mix, but the report does not say which applies here. The supported observation is narrower and still worth making: watch revenue fell in the quarter even as most of the wider Hermès business grew.

I would watch the next set of figures before declaring this a turn in the maker's longer story. The nine-month constant-currency decline is modest beside the quarterly one, and a single quarter should not be asked to explain an entire watch strategy. Equally, the word successful beside an H08 launch should not be used to smooth over a published decline in the Watches segment. For readers following the company as a watchmaker, the sales line deserves to be read on its own terms.

The most useful takeaway is the least dramatic: Hermès is growing, and its watch business currently is not growing with it. The distinction is visible in the company's own numbers, with no speculation required.