News24 | Rolex to start verifying pre-owned watches in SA next year

Rolex will launch it’s certified pre-owned program in South Africa next year. (Peter Dazeley/Getty Images).

• The Rolex certified pre-owned programme will launch in South Africa next year.
• Pre-owned watches certified by Rolex have guarantees regarding the authenticity and quality of the timepiece.
• The programme will help prospective Rolex owners avoid being duped by the abundance of fakes in the market.
• For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.

Rolex will soon start offering an authentication service for its pre-owned luxury timepieces in South Africa, in a bid to help prospective buyers avoid being duped by fakes in the market.

South Africa will become the first country in Africa where Rolex has launched its certified pre-owned programme when it starts operating next year.

Rolex launched the Rolex certified pre-owned (RCPO) programme, which offers guarantees regarding the authenticity and quality of a used Rolex watch, in a few select markets late in 2022.

“These watches benefit from the quality criteria inherent to all Rolex products and from the full know-how and professionalism of the brand’s worldwide network of experts,” Rolex said in a release about its operations in South Africa issued this week.

The certification has proven to be a game changer for secondhand Rolex watches in other markets.

Chrono24, which is one of the biggest luxury watch marketplaces in the world, calculated in 2023 that it costs an average of 38% more to buy a CPO Rolex than the same watch in brand new condition on the so-called ‘grey market’.

The grey market refers to new watches sold by non-authorised dealers, who can’t offer the same guarantees as primary market sellers that have official certification.

Because luxury watches are often sold for eye-watering prices, there is an abundance of fakes that attempt to imitate the real thing.

Last year, Arjen van de Vall, the CEO of Watchfinder, a company that specialises in secondhand watches, told Bloomberg that half of the fake watches they identify on the market are ‘Rolexes’.

READ | Half of fake watches are Rolex replicas, Watchfinder CEO Says

“Rolex is the most aspirational luxury watch brand and the highest demand, hence it’s the most replicated,” he said.

He said that imitations were growing in number and sophistication, making them harder to spot.

The market for second-hand Rolexes has softened from the high prices experienced in early 2022.

Watchcharts maintains an index of the average second-hand prices of 30 of the most popular Rolex models.

The index shows that average prices across the models have fallen by 28% from the highs experienced in March 2022.

Rolex joined big multinationals Shell and BNP Paribas in announcing moves away from South Africa in recent months when it said that it would be closing its Sandton affiliate office, which had been operating in South Africa for 76 years.

The company affirmed its commitment to the South African market this week, claiming it wants to grow its retail presence in South Africa. It pointed to the imminent RCPO program launch as one of the initiatives being put in place to achieve this.