The number of luxury watches reported to The Watch Register as lost or stolen in the U.S. could jump significantly this year. 

The Watch Register, a major global database for tracking lost or stolen timepieces, told FOX Business that registrations of watches lost or stolen in the U.S. to its database have spiked 106% so far this year compared to those that occurred during the same time frame in 2022. By the end of the year, The Watch Register anticipates it could wind up seeing a “year on year rise of thefts and losses reported from the USA increase by 77.5%” if reporting to its database keeps up its current rate. 

“However, this could potentially be far higher if the reported thefts continue to soar in the last quarter,” The Watch Register Business Development and Recoveries Manager Catherine Alexander told FOX Business.

Within The Watch Register’s database of tens of thousands of watches, 9% of timepieces were lost or stolen in the U.S, the group said in an Aug. 21 press release. That made America the country with the third largest share, behind Germany, also at 9%, and England, at 47%, according to the database.

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The Watch Register had over 6,800 watches around the world believed to be stolen or lost join its database in 2022, lifting the total amount it tracks to 80,000, according to a press release. The roughly 6,800 registrations marked additions rising 60% year-over-year.

Those watches have a combined estimated value of over $1.26 billion (£1 billion), the database, which does not include every lost or stolen timepiece in the world, said. 

For a watch to get added to The Watch Register’s database, its owner must supply its “unique serial number and proof of loss such as a crime reference number,” the press release said. It has over 850 brands in it, according to the database’s website. 

The brand that had the highest frequency of being lost or stolen was Rolex by far. It represented 44% of the database’s timepieces, according to The Watch Register.

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Luxury brands Omega, Breitling and Tag Heuer also ranked highly among those registered to the database, though they accounted for only single-digit percentages of the total watches within it, according to The Watch Register. Of all the timepieces in the database, those made up 7%, 6% and 5%, respectively.

The database said Cartier represented 4% of missing or stolen watches, while Patek Philippe came in at 3%. 

“The considerable value and prestige of these high-end timepieces continues to attract the attention of sophisticated and international criminal networks, making them a prime target for theft,” The Watch Register Managing Director Katya Hills said in a statement.

The database recommends for owners to “make sure that they have adequate insurance for their watch, to keep photographs of their watch and to make note of their watch’s unique serial number, which will aid its recovery in the event of it being lost or stolen.”

The data from The Watch Register comes as luxury watches have continued to gain popularity among consumers.

LUXURY WATCH MARKET DEMAND BOOSTED BY YOUNGER GENERATION OF BUYERS

FOX Business recently reported, citing the Boston Consulting Group, that luxury watch sales have become a $75 billion market, with secondhand sales making up 30% of that. Younger generations have helped drive the growth. 

Sumner Park and Madison Alworth contributed to this report.

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Business is typically booming at theme parks over the summer. This year, the weather has consistently put a damper on operations.

As a result, it’s driving down traffic at popular theme parks around the country. Unfortunately, with Tropical Storm Hilary bringing heavy rain and the possibility of significant flooding to California and Nevada, these theme park operators might not be out of the woods just yet.

Bad conditions, from excessive rainfall, high temperatures and smoke deriving from the Canadian wildfires, was a “clear driver of traffic weakness” for Six Flags Entertainment, SeaWorld Entertainment and Cedar Fair during the second quarter, according to research note from Macquarie analysts Paul Golding and Emma Liang.

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During a recent earnings call, Six Flags Entertainment CEO Selim Bassoul said the company lost “almost 400,000 in attendance.”

CFO Gary Mick added that the company’s attendance growth fell short of expectations due to challenging weather, which consisted of “unusually high rainfall in the Northeast, combined with a record heat wave in the South.”

Mick further noted that it’s “hard to make up for the lost revenue in the first half.” In fact, moving forward, Mick said the company needs “to have fairly good weather … to collect what was hampered by the weather in the first half.”

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The company, according to Mick, has plans to look at adding more indoor venues, more air-conditioned venues and more air-conditioned restaurants.

Bassoul also noted that the company is still seeing “promising trends despite weather challenges.” Pass sales are strong, and attendance trends are improving, he said.

Cedar Fair CEO Richard Zimmerman said unprecedented rainfall and extreme temperatures had plagued its East Coast parks as well as California parks earlier in the season.

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“The persistent rainfall meaningfully disrupted demand over the first half of the year as well as sales of 2023 passes, which will continue to be a headwind on attendance over the balance of the year,” Zimmerman said.

The chief executive also noted that cooler-than-normal temperatures had a major impact on attendance at four of the company’s stand-alone water parks in Texas, including Cedar Point Shores, Knott’s Soak City and our two Schlitterbahn water parks.

He also said attendance was hurt at Canada’s Wonderland and several of other U.S. parks due to “public health concerns over poor air quality caused by the ongoing Canadian wildfires.”

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Still, the company noted that “while demand challenges have been persistent in certain key markets, most notably in California, our solid performance at parks operating under normal conditions underscores the resilience of our business model,” he added. 

SeaWorld CEO Marc Swanson said the combination of unusually hot and cold weather, rain and the fallout from Canadian wildfires “impacted most of our markets during the quarter.”

CFO Jim Forrester said revenue in the quarter fell 1.7% to $496 million when compared to the same period a year ago, which he attributes to the “decrease in attendance of 2%.”

That said, Swanson reported that the company is “planning new initiatives for the balance of this year and next year that will make us an even stronger, more profitable and more resilient business.”

“We have high confidence in the plans we are executing on today and for the future and in our ability to deliver substantial operational and financial improvements that will lead to meaningful increases in shareholder value,” he said.

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