Rolex watches are getting more expensive because gold prices have soared to record highs

The retail cost of the Rolex Daytona chronograph in white gold rose 4% to £38,700 ($49,312) from £37,200 as of June 1, according to information on the Swiss watchmaker’s UK website, tracked by Bloomberg News. 

The price of a yellow gold GMT Master II jumped to £35,400 from £34,000.

Country-specific prices for timepieces made by Geneva-based Rolex can be seen as an indicator of a country’s economic strength. The world’s top luxury watch brand produces more than 1 million watches per year, with sales above 10 billion Swiss francs ($11.08 billion). 

The price of gold has surged 14% this year, touching an all time high of $2,450 an ounce in May on optimism the US Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates. The British pound last month rose to its highest against the euro since August 2022. 

A Rolex spokesperson in Geneva declined to comment on the change in prices. 

Rolex typically raises prices for its watches once a year, in January. It increased prices in the UK by about 4% for some models at that time, including some steel watches, but left US prices unchanged. 

Major currency swings spurred Rolex to raise prices twice in the UK in 2022, in January and September, as the pound skidded to its lowest level against the dollar in decades. Rolex also hiked prices in European countries twice that year.