News: Rolex Issues Statement Addressing The Great Rolex Shortage

That Rolex has a bit of an odd supply situation, with virtually no steel watches available in any store worldwide, is an understatement. It is a situation that is not the most fun for watch enthusiasts or generally anyone looking to buy a Rolex wristwatch. It is also a situation that is highly lucrative for the grey market and has led to some rather strange situations in these past few years.

Following an analysis published on Yahoo Finance, which reached a wide audience, Rolex has done the unthinkable: They have started to supply watches to their boutiques again so the general public can actually buy their watches. No, sorry, that was a mean joke. However, it is true that Rolex did the unthinkable, they actually issued a statement:

“The scarcity of our products is not a strategy on our part. Our current production cannot meet the existing demand in an exhaustive way, at least not without reducing the quality of our watches – something we refuse to do as the quality of our products must never be compromised. This level of excellence requires time, and as we have always done, we will continue to take the necessary time to ensure that all our watches not only comply with our standards of excellence, but also meet the expectations of our customers in terms of quality, reliability and robustness. Rolex does not compromise on what it takes to produce exceptional watches.

All Rolex watches are developed and produced in-house at our four sites in Switzerland. They are assembled by hand, with extreme care, to meet the brand’s unique and high-quality standards of quality, performance and aesthetics. Understandably, this naturally restricts our production capacities – which we continue to increase as much as possible and always according to our quality criteria.

Finally, it should be noted that Rolex watches are available exclusively from official retailers, who independently manage the allocation of watches to customers.”