Walk into any luxury mall, from Dubai to New York, and you can almost predict it. Somewhere near the marble staircase sits a green logo and a gold crown. People slow down, press their faces a little closer to the glass, and stare at watches that cost more than a small car.
That logo began with a boy who lost almost everything
Hans Wilsdorf was 12 when both his parents died in Bavaria. His uncles sold the family business and sent him to boarding school. It was a tough childhood, but it forced him to become independent early, something he later said shaped his discipline and habits.
By 24, he was in London, importing tiny Swiss movements and dreaming of something that sounded almost foolish at the time: a wristwatch that could be as accurate and trusted as the pocket watches gentlemen kept on chains. In 1905 he set up Wilsdorf & Davis in London, the company that would become Rolex. A few years later he registered a short, crisp name that could be pronounced in any language: Rolex.
From London Fog To Swiss Precision
Wilsdorf was not a watchmaker in the traditional sense. He was a trader with an obsession for accuracy. He pushed his suppliers hard and chased chronometer certificates, treating precision as a marketing asset, not just a technical detail.
When Britain introduced heavy taxes on imported luxury goods after World War I, he quietly moved the company’s base to Geneva in 1919. That shift did more than save margins. It placed Rolex at the heart of Swiss watchmaking, surrounded by suppliers, talent and a growing ecosystem that saw timekeeping as an art as much as an industry.
The early story is less about celebrity and more about engineering. In 1926, Rolex launched the Oyster, a waterproof case with a screw-down crown and back. It was a technical answer to a simple problem: dust and water kept killing movements. A year later, Wilsdorf found his storytelling moment.
He convinced British swimmer Mercedes Gleitze to wear an Oyster on a chain during her “vindication” swim in the English Channel. She could not complete the second crossing due to the cold, but the watch came out in perfect shape. Rolex took a full-page ad in the Daily Mail calling it “the watch that defied the Channel”. It was an early lesson in influencer marketing, decades before Instagram.
Tool Watches For A New Age Of Adventure
From the 1950s, Rolex stopped being just a dress watch and became a tool for professionals. As commercial flying, diving and motorsport took off, the brand launched a series of models that defined categories.
The Submariner in 1953 targeted divers and became a symbol of underwater exploration. The GMT-Master in 1955 helped Pan Am pilots track two time zones on long-haul routes. The Cosmograph Daytona in the 1960s linked Rolex to racing circuits and, later, Hollywood mythology through Paul Newman.
These watches were not sold as “luxury lifestyle” pieces then. They were tools, meant to be scratched, soaked and taken into harsh conditions. The luxury gloss came later, as prosperity grew and customers started buying the same watches not for work but for what they signalled.
In an unusual move for a global giant, Wilsdorf left Rolex to a foundation rather than to family. The Hans Wilsdorf Foundation still owns the brand today. That structure, without quarterly earnings calls, gives Rolex a long-term view most listed luxury groups would envy.
The Business Of Scarcity
In the modern luxury watch market, Rolex is not just another player. It is the benchmark. Industry estimates put its 2023 turnover above 10 billion Swiss francs, with roughly 30 percent share of the entire Swiss watch market by value, far ahead of any competitor.
That dominance has a side effect: chronic shortage. Popular models like the Submariner or GMT-Master II are often impossible to buy at retail. Long waitlists at authorised dealers created a parallel “grey market”, where speculators flipped new watches at heavy premiums. Some analyses suggest that grey channels represent around a quarter of total transaction value in the high-end watch space.
Instead of ignoring this, Rolex stepped directly into the pre-owned market. In 2022 it launched its Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) programme through selected dealers, offering authenticated used watches with a Rolex-backed guarantee. In 2025 it relaxed the age rule so that any Rolex at least two years old could qualify. The company’s message was clear: if customers are going to trade on the secondary market anyway, Rolex would rather shape the rules.
At the same time, rising gold prices have forced most top watchmakers, including Rolex, to hike prices and rethink their mix of precious metal models. Gold watches are a tiny slice of export volume, but a big slice of value, so volatility in raw materials hits margins fast.
New Money And The Meaning Of A Crown
For many buyers, Rolex is still the “first serious watch” they dream of, often tied to a milestone, a promotion or the sale of a company. The brand has widened its footprint in the world through partners, with new boutiques and networks that now reach several dozen cities. Pre-owned Rolex pieces are also popping up on every luxury platform, sometimes going to tier-2 towns.
It says something about where consumption is headed. The same founder who once imported movements to serve the British Empire is now an aspirational symbol for founders worldwide.
Rolex’s story is not a wild creative reinvention every season. It is a slow, almost stubborn refinement of a few core ideas: make accurate watches, protect them from the elements, link them to real human achievement, and control how they move through the world, whether new or second-hand.
In a luxury market that is more volatile, more political and more scrutinised than ever, that mix of emotional storytelling and hard-nosed control might be its biggest competitive edge. An orphan from Bavaria built a brand for a world that did not yet exist. A century later, that world is still checking the time on his dial.
