The Business of Watches [004] Tag Heuer CEO Antoine Pin On Carbon Hairspring Setbacks, Pricing, Tariffs, And Formula One¶
Published on Wed, 15 Oct 2025 15:00:00 +0000
Industry veteran Antoine Pin says he doesn't regret being cautious about production with the relaunched Formula 1 collection.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of The Business of Watches, host Andy Hoffman interviews Antoine Pin, CEO of TAG Heuer, during Geneva Watch Days in September. The conversation centers on a pivotal year for TAG Heuer as it serves as the official timekeeper of Formula One under a decade-long, billion-dollar LVMH sponsorship deal. Pin discusses the brand's triumphant return to carbon hairspring technology after addressing moisture sensitivity issues that plagued their 2019 launch. The new proprietary carbon hairspring, featuring a protective coating, represents six years of persistent R&D work by the TAG Heuer Lab team.
Pin emphasizes TAG Heuer's philosophy of "Born to Win," which encompasses both overcoming technical setbacks and maintaining the brand's avant-garde approach to horology. The Formula One partnership has proven highly successful, creating natural brand synergy and generating significant consumer interest, though Pin admits the reissued Formula One watch remains understocked due to his cautious production strategy. This prudent approach, adopted amid economic uncertainty and U.S. tariff concerns, prioritizes matching demand organically rather than over-anticipating growth.
The interview also explores TAG Heuer's unique market positioning, spanning from accessible entry-level luxury watches priced under 2,000 francs to haute horlogerie pieces exceeding 100,000 francs. Pin defends this wide price range as reflecting the brand's diverse, multigenerational clientele and commitment to making innovation accessible across price points. He acknowledges the challenge of enchanting customers at lower price points while simultaneously pushing boundaries with expensive avant-garde pieces. Regarding tariffs, Pin reveals TAG Heuer is taking a "wait and see" approach with a three-to-five-month window before making pricing decisions, focusing instead on product desirability and innovation.
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Transcript¶
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| Andy Hoffman | Welcome to the Business of Watches, where Horology meets high finance and each tip tells a story of markets, margins, mishaps, and mechanical mastery. I'm your host, Andy Hoffman, Senior Business Editor at Hodinky. In this series, we dive deep into the global watch industry, a place where centuries-old craftsmanship intersects with billion-dollar valuations, executive brand strategy, and investor speculation. From Swiss Valleys to Silicon Valley, we trace the movements shaping this uniquely resilient sector. Just how big is the business of timekeeping? Well, some estimates place the entire watch industry from ultra-luxury maisons to smart watches and micro brands at north of $100 billion globally. But behind that figure is a complex web of legacy, innovation, and ever-shifting consumer tastes and demand. This is the podcast for collectors, analysts, watch buyers, and sellers, and anyone who's fascinated by the intersection of wristware and wealth. Because if time is money, then money is most certainly time. So let's get down to business. Antoine Penn is on track. The Taghoyer CEO is leading the brand through one of the most important years in its history. This is the first year Tag Hoyer is the official timekeeper of Formula One. It is part of a decade-long multi-brand deal for Tag Hoyer owner LVMH, said to be worth about $1 billion. The agreement marks a major shift in visibility for the brand, and last year it brought back the iconic Formula One model to coincide with the new Formula One sponsorship. So have Pin and Taghoyer been able to take advantage? Amid an industry-wide downturn in demand, he has been cautious about overproducing when consumers are dealing with economic shifts and upheaval. But tag is also innovating. After a first attempt in 2019 proved to have issues, the brand is back with its own in-house carbon hairspring. It is a brave move to double down on the previous setback. Pin says it aligns with the brand's new slogan, Born to Win. The Hoyer name is a hallowed one in the Swiss watch world, but it also has a lot of challenges in telling its message. With the iconic Monaco and Carrera models, its history is one that is synonymous with motorsports, but it also needs to serve as the LVMH entry-level priced watch brand, charged with bringing people into the luxury watch world with watches priced at under two thousand francs. At the same time, it has an innovation lab to push the boundaries of watchmaking, technology and design, and it also produces watches priced at more than 100,000 francs. That is not an easy cake to bake, but Antoine Penn believes he has the recipe. Recorded at Geneva Watch Days in September. Here's our conversation with Tag Hoyer CEO and industry veteran, Antoine Pinn. Antoine Pinn, uh CEO of Taghoyer, welcome. Thank you for joining me here at Geneva Watch Days. Thank you for for being with us. Great to see you. It's great to see you, sir. And congratulations on your new releases. Um tell us what Taghoyer is bringing to Geneva Watch Days this year and what message in uh you're sending with the product. Aaron Powell Well |
| Antoine Pin | I think um the first message we're sending is uh for the first time we're at the Geneva Watch Days because um some one of the great retailers of this industry once told me, you know, what I like about uh the Geneva Wage Days, it's uh the gigs moment. And and it's true that the population that joins us here, from collectors to the press, are people who clearly have uh deep insight and solid understanding of the industry. And so we took advantage of our first participation to the Geneva Watch Days to re-expose collections uh bearing uh or carbon aspiring. Because obviously this is quite technical, but this is a major, major statement from us because this is the first time that we do bear in our hands this possibility to produce our own airspring matching the qualities of silicone, somewhat surpassing the qualities of silicon. And we've developed it internally. We're producing it internally. We're fully producing it. So we are taking advantage of this announcement to expose the two limited editions, one in uh Monaco, carbon Limited edition, and one Carrara to beyond Carbon Limited Edition as well. Interestingly, celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Wuigans regulating organ in developments, innovation, but also uh displaying this the uh this uh carbon airspring. So it's uh it's an interesting statement because yes, we are working on developing our uh magnetic calibers. That's the beauty of dealing with silicon or carbon. You're basically protecting yourself from the influence of magnetism. And besides this, uh you are also developing materials that are very insensitive to numerous number of external factors such as pressure. The issue we have, and that's where we are closing one chapter of our history was that when we first introduced this innovation, we unfortunately identified a problem while we were launching the piece. And it was an element of fragility which was a sensitivity to humidity. And as much as I think it's the story about this innovation is major because it opens up massive opportunities for the future for us. The moment we manage this uh technology of of carbon items production, which is extremely special. We can develop that in the in different fields. But it also closes the chapter of what we all face. The moment you face a challenge in your life, you sit down, you recover, you relaunch the machine, and you surpass the challenge and and and you achieve your goal. And in that sense, closing chapter by launching these collections is also a way to to pay tribute to the people of the Tagory Lab who've been spending the last six years sorting out this issue we identifying and finally coming with this uh this carbon. We we didn't give up. They didn't give up. They didn't say okay that was an option. They went back and they worked harder and and it clearly clearly was extremely complex to sort out and I've not necessarily witnessed the whole struggle. Sure. But I love this idea, this which is really uh probably the the signature of Tiger about surpassing yourself, this notion of being designed to win means you're designed to win because you surpass your failures. Yeah. And and for me it's very much representative of our identity and to find it not just through the expression of sports, which is our ex or natural expressions toward the public, but to find it in our teams is really extraordinarily satisfying. And so it's a human adventure, it's a it's a technical adventure and a promise for extraordinar |
| Andy Hoffman | And can you address you know uh specifically but um hopefully uh fairly easy to understand how those issues with moisture and humidity for carbon were were have been addressed here and and you've sort of solved |
| Antoine Pin | that that rhythm first I I'm not able to understand the whole process. I mean uh too many PhDs in the room for me. Uh but where I can tell you is basically so we are structuring the carbon. Okay, we are building, we are really creating the spray, the air spraying uh shape with carbon. But to protect this carbon structure from moisture and humidity, we coated it. Right. We're talking micron level of precision or even smaller dimensions than microns. So we' reallyre dealing with extraordinarily, extraordinarily tiny, tiny dimensions. You can imagine we are talking 10 microns kind of precision and you're doing this coating which is extraordinarily thin and that's the coating that's protecting the carbon. And that's as much as I can explain. Uh then the nature of the coating. I'm sorry, I don't remember, and I'm not sure I'm allowed to to mention it by the way. Absolutely. Completely proprietary technology, both from |
| Andy Hoffman | the development and the production, by the way. And you're you're showcasing this in both the Monaco and um in the Carrera talk about Both models are actually display |
| Antoine Pin | ing hierology. Hierology is a is uh is a big big uh basket of uh so many things. So we we like to call our uh hierrology avant-garde in in in the philosophy of what the brand is about. So really focusing on innovation. And Monaco and Kara are the two collections bearing those developments and we wanted somewhat to expose this airspring in both collections. Uh wanted also uh in in somewhat it's just again the promise for the future. So the plan today is to continue to develop our expertise from uh small production, progressively expanding production, so that eventually we are uh equipping all our avant-garde logis But let's say all product that we consider uh innovative in terms of calibre uh to be equipped with these uh airsprings from now on. So you will see it's spreading progressively, but first in in limited quantities. Part of this move to C |
| Andy Hoffman | arbon Spring is is about access to silicon uh and patents that existed around that. So yeah, I mean it's part of the the business strategy as a as a competitor to uh. |
| Antoine Pin | it's to other people Carbon gives us two things. It first gives us independence when it comes to airspring. I mean non traditional airsprings. And it gives us again opportunities to outperform silicon on some aspects, from isochronism to the weight of carbon being lighter than silicon and therefore lower exposure to gravity, which we know is another one of those external factors that are influencing the performance of our calibers. All in this with this idea to provide products that eventually will be so precise that again they,'re matching. I mean that we're not matching quads, but we are getting so close that we are providing products that are mechanically engineered, sustainable, and providing the level of precision that people would expect in their daily life today. So it's really projecting ourselves in the 21st century of mechanical watches. Somewhat I I love this idea. We're talking about it's it's quite paradoxical that you're talking about an item that was invented centuries ago. But it's jumping or diving into the modernity of uh of extraordinary complex technologies, but also of a socially uh very advanced concepts such as sustainability. So we it's almost like uh jumping from very traditional perspectives to extremely modern perspectives. |
| Andy Hoffman | Let's um look back a bit. You had made a huge splash uh earlier this year bringing back the Formula One. You began being the official timekeeper of uh Formula One, you know, backing that and part of a an L VMH sponsorship agreement. How's that gone so far? What has it done for the brand? How has the consumer interest in the in the in the product been? It's been an extraordinary booster |
| Antoine Pin | . I think um we did have this uh return to Formula One. We also sharpened our communication around the consumer design to win. And it all uh brought the brand upfront and exposed it and it exposed it to a very large population. Formula One is now a very universal platform. And the beauty of Formula One for us is it's the fact that it's both a media obviously, but it's also the story. I mean putting Tiger as the timekeeper of Omanauan is self-explanatory. And there is a such a high level of logic that felt so natural to people, but in the same time, I've had so many reactions about yes, of course that's our com tag was not there. And so there are moments when you feel um it was a bold move to challenge the existing and uh and to to to invest heavily in this project because it's a very expensive project. But from a public global reaction perspective from uh the level of marks of attention from potential clients from the reactions of our existing clients from all those perspectives, it made more than sense. It was it's an exceptional decision and it was the right one to make. Which just creates the platform that we needed to expose ourselves, but also an element of motivation to push this notion of avant-garde and modernity even more and to concentrate on our identity deeply. And which again you'll see even more in the coming times, concentrating on our identity, which is based on the notion of time-keeping, of course, of connection to sports and performances. And this philosophy of surpassing yourself, of really finding in yourself the the potential to grow and to be a stronger person. And and those philosophies we will try to we to expose them in the product and that's why I was telling this story of the spring, because it's a human adventure and you'll see more of it in the coming times. You and I talked back I think in |
| Andy Hoffman | March about you know your decision uh the decisions you made in terms of production and you know how much product you were gonna create here and you didn't want to overstuff the channel in a sort of uncertain uh economic time. How is that played out um as a decision? Ne |
| Antoine Pin | xt time I'm going to say that the the the the the future is going to be unbelievably predictable and and positive and I we won't have such crazy in events than what uh as what happened over the last six months. I mean the fact is that I think this uh the prudence that I mentioned at the time proves with uh with hindsight I mean proves right uh you uh obviously we are uh we are dealing with uh with uh times that are not so easy and being prudent allows us to be very reactive as well. I mean again being cautious doesn't mean that we are closing our productions or whatever. We're just um I I mean I've I spent enough time in this industry to learn from uh some important watchmakers and there is a an extraordinary level of entrepreneurship but with entrepreneurship comes also a form of prudence. Hm you know that miracles do not happen, that we are connected with people who are spending investing their own money. And so they're they're both very enthusiastic. They believe in their faith, they believe in what they are developing, but they're also prudent and cautious because they know that everything can happen. And and so you're learning from them and and you're learning this form of prudence. And and I think the cautiousness was uh was was the right step to do. We're okay. We're really, really happy about the momentum and the dynamics. But it's better to to progress and improve very progressively, matching the way the demand is growing, than to anticipate and unfortunately being being wrong with this anticipation. So we continue with this journey, we continue to to accompany the growth rather than anticipating it. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. I mean the the the Formula One is a is a watch that's priced, you know, around two thousand uh dollars, slightly below. I think you know, that was important for you to hit that. It's an i i you know, accessible time piece. Have you got the balance right though in terms of what's available and and the demand |
| Antoine Pin | ? Well, there's more demand. But that's okay. I mean that's uh sometimes unfortunate. Uh we're missing uh people's birthdays, we're missing some celebrations, and I'm sorry about that because it's always a form of frustration. But that's the price to pay. Again it's a it's uh there's no uh a magic ball and y you're either over stocked or understocked and and uh fine. Okay, yes, we're we are out of stock. Some partners are unhappy, some clients are unhappy because they don't have enough and and they would love to have more. We're adjusting. I mean we're we've increased our production and to to match the demand and um and and fair enough. Right.. Yeah And again, there's always a it's a choice. Your choice. Yeah choosing is renouncing. So we we accepted it. We uh we that was uh these are management decisions we make uh every day |
| Andy Hoffman | at the end of the day Aaron Powell And let's talk briefly about you know just straddling that line and being in that um that category you've got a a watch priced like the Formula One or the Aqua Racer, which are sort of approachably priced uh pieces, and then you know you you um have your high horology here with the new um uh uh carbon technology and the hairspring and and some watches are over a hundred thousand francs. How does a brand like to have I mean, you know, I mean as a CEO, uh how do you navigate that wide berth in you know |
| Antoine Pin | in your product offer? Most of the brands I've worked with have the same kind of gap in reality. The leaders of this of this industry have the same gap deal with the same kind of gap. You've got jewelry brands that are selling watches above a million in with entry price at the level of our products. We've got the leader of this industry with selling watches uh with a ratio of one to one hundred. Sure. I think uh when you're dealing with a brand that has a form of universal appeal, meaning worldwide exposure, dealing with all genders and different age category, there is a natural tendency to address different demands in terms of pricing as well. And on another end, on a totally other opposite side, we're dealing with innovation, avant garde, but also with precision, okay, with chronographs. Because that's really what we're looking into. Avant garde is a very expensive product. I mean uh the Tagory Lab is a fifty million uh Swiss franc investment over ten years. Okay. It's a huge amount of money. That has a price and you see that in what we call the avant-garde urology. What drives us is this vision. Not the price one specifically. Even if I think that we do have a duty to remain reasonably affordable within the the constraints of the industry and the world today, but to maintain this form of affordability. And my dream being that we manage to share this innovation we're working on throughout all price points. But of course, it's a progressive process. And that leads to these kind of price differences because we do have products that are mechanical products that are made of extremely complex materials that require uh the actions of of Swiss talented watchmakers. Those have a price and and and I believe that in reality this is matching the the diversity of our clientele. We have uh some of our clients are um eighty year old, some are fifty year old, and I love that. Yeah, but they don't necessarily they share the philosophy, they share our values. Yeah. The the ones I mentioned. They understand what Tiger stands for. But some may have five Tiger Ears, some may have just the first one. And and we are telling them a different story, even if it's again grounded on the same basis. Yes. For me the price is not an issue. Actually I I don't like to think that the price is an element, it's a consequence. It's a conclusion. The beauty of our industry, which is fundamentally part of the luxury sector, it's the fact that people are ready to pay the price if they see the value. Our challenge is to make sure that the value they feel is there and is tangible. It's not just, you know let's say uh shallow but but that's what we're working on but I can guarantee you that the brief to the team right now is when we're talking about the vanguardy is and I mentioned it still this morning again if tomorrow we have to price a product at half a million or a million for good reason and then the reason is here and then the people will be engaged because the story will be unbelievable and the product will be unbelievable. Free yourself from two constraints: price tar |
| Andy Hoffman | get and timing. But you remain committed though to also you know, producing and offering the the the Formula One and the Acora Racer and and and those uh And the one doesn't prevent the other. Yep. You're you're not but you're not going to I mean because some so much of this industry has just simply moved up scale |
| Antoine Pin | and And my point is, and by the way, my point is yes, let's talk about how difficult it is to make exceptional products below four or five thousand threes frank. Because in reality, we are celebrating extraordinary pieces and we should. But we should never forget the extraordinary pieces under a certain price point. So now the challenge is more difficult. I mean as much as I'm happy to give as many resources to some of our people who are into the RD system, I'm really helping as I'm really pushing the teams to also take advantage of these innovations but find ways to enchant people at a more reasonable price. And probably this is where the challenge is much more difficult. And this is where we need to spend even more time and more resources. But this is where I mean I'm clearly not, we're not clearly not going to escape that part. It's where the challenges. But I like it. And I must say I've got high respect for some of those brands, some of those leaders of the industry who managed to deliver that. And we were talking about them. There are many brands who have a very wide scope of prices and and that's good. That's good |
| Andy Hoffman | . I was speaking to uh Monsieur Babin, talking about the market in general, obviously, you know, terrorists in the US is the issue. Um what he suggested is certainly for Bulgary and and and others is that, you know, you've you've you've got enough stock that's been sent to the U.S. to last for a while. Are you operating, though, and planning, looking forward and making decisions, budgeting decisions with these tariffs remaining in place, or are you hoping for a change and what's that going to mean for price |
| Antoine Pin | I think this is exactly I mean we go back to the previous question. Yeah it's extremely unpredictable and we need to be ready to react to this unpredictability. So what does it mean? It means we have scenarios with or without the duties. We give ourselves the time to react because we know there could be adjustments within a certain period of time. So we've basically put ourselves in a position to wait and see until we can't wait anymore, but for the moment uh the let's say the the reaction is really to sort of um keep calm and work on our desirability, work on the enchantment, because that's what we can control, okay? And then we'll adapt. Uh again, coming back to the fact that that that this industry is extremely reactive, pragmatic, entrepreneurial, so we'll find a way. But it doesn't make our life easy, obviously. How long can you wait and keep calm and carry on? Can you give us a uh how many months is is is that do we Yeah we're basically all in the same uh ballpark over three to four months four three to five months. So it's uh uh and then we can see we can uh we're we we're we are clearly uh staying in in in close connection with the authorities and we see how things go. Anything else you'd like to uh hit on today in this uh short time we have at this point. No, just um just bear with us. I I again uh I mentioned the fact that we were closing the chapter of the carbonic spring but we're opening the chapter of uh avant-garde orology based on those technologies. So bear with us. There'll be many, many things coming in the in the next time. So we are we'll really work hard to continue to enchant people who like watchmaking. Super. Antoine |
| Andy Hoffman | Pinn, CEO of TagHore. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. And that's the business of watches for this episode. We hope you enjoyed. Please head on over to hodinky.com where you can join the discussion and leave any comments or questions about this episode or the business of watches in general. Who knows? We might even answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening and see you next time. We'll be back in two weeks with a fresh episode of the business of watches. Until then, I'm Andy Hoffman, and I'll see you on hodinky dot. com |