Is It About to Get Easier to Buy Your Dream Rolex?

Despite what many watch YouTubers and forum users would have you believe, there is no grand Rolex conspiracy.

Many are convinced that Rolex deliberately keeps production numbers low in order to manufacture demand, ensuring the brand’s most-coveted watches are always among the most hyped on the market.

The truth is far more boring. In reality, Rolex already produces and sells well over 1 million watches every year — far more than any other brand in its price bracket. The demand for its watches is just so great that production can’t keep up, even at those high numbers.

Photo by Jack Seemer for Gear Patrol

To alleviate this issue, Rolex announced back in 2022 that it was increasing production by expanding its manufacturing facilities. This was exciting news at the time, but the brand has been mum on those plans ever since.

Well, The Crown’s silence has ended. According to a new report out of Switzerland, Rolex has finally provided an update on its expansion plans, including our first look at its sparkling new complex.

A Bulle Market

According to a new report by Swiss newspaper NZZ, as spotted by our friends at Hodinkee, Rolex has released the first official renderings of the facility it plans to build in the fast-growing city of Bulle, Switzerland, and has also applied for a building permit to begin construction.

The facility is massive, consisting of four production buildings connected to a central building handling administration, meeting areas and other kinds of support. The 100,000-square-meter complex is expected to cost over one billion Swiss francs (~$1.1 billion) and will employ about 2,000 workers.

Rolex

Rolex is almost entirely vertically integrated and produces most of its own parts. The brand currently operates four production facilities throughout Switzerland, each specializing in a different area of the watches.

The Geneva facility assembles the watches, a manufacture in Biel/Bienne crafts the movements, the Chêne-Bourg factory handles dials, bezel inserts and gems, and the bracelets, bezels and cases are put together in Plan-les-Ouates, which is also the location of the brand’s famous gold foundry.

It’s unclear at this time what parts and materials the new facility in Bulle will handle, but given the fact that there are four production buildings on site, perhaps it will take on some of the overflow from each of the other factories.

Rolex

More Rolexes When?

Outside of Rolex sharing what the new Bulle facility will look like, we don’t really have any more information today than we had in 2022.

The plan is still to open the new complex in 2029, which means we’ll have to wait at least another five years to see what kind of impact it has on the market. As we learned two years ago, Rolex is also opening two smaller temporary manufacturing facilities to boost production in the meantime, with one in Villaz-Saint-Pierre set to open this year and another in Romont opening next year.

Depending on the output of these temporary facilities, we could potentially see an increase in available Rolexes on the market as soon as next year, with incrementally larger annual increases as their employees grow to a max of 250 or 300 by 2029, at which point they will be transferred to the Bulle factory.

If Bulle gets up and running quickly, the 2030s may be the decade when Rolex finally says goodbye to the waitlist … OK, there will still probably be waitlists, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

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