Fossil Learning More About Wearables Category ‘As We Progress,’ Says CEO
The wearables category is new to Fossil, “and we're learning as we progress,” CEO Kosta Kartsotis said on a Thursday earnings call. “We can see that playing out” with the company’s recent launch of its Michael Kors Access line of…
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wearables, he said. “We expect we'll learn even more from the important holiday season.” Fossil is “especially excited” about its “hybrid” smartwatch launches in a total of seven brands, he said. These are “truly unique products that will bring more interest and new customers to the watch business,” he said. “At first glance, these watches look just like traditional watches, incorporating all the same designs, styling and fashion that have given us a strong competitive advantage.” But on closer look, their “enhanced feature set is broad, incorporating fitness tracking, notifications and a robust branded app experience, all powered by traditional coin cell batteries,” he said. “These can be game-changing products and give us significant opportunity for share gains, and we'll be working hard to educate consumers about the capabilities and features of these watches.” Before the wearables category “was even around,” 45 percent of the sales in the “watch business overall” were done between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he said: “We hear that wearables is even skewed even more heavily towards that, maybe even 50 percent or so, but it's not that much different than our typical watch business.”