Beijing street is top for watches, jewelry

Beijing's landmark Wangfujing Street shopping hub is among the country's top places for consumers to find premier consumer goods, especially luxury watches and jewelry.

As of August 2012, a total of 52 watch brands, including 45 foreign brands - 33 from Switzerland - have established showrooms, franchise stores or counters in shopping malls in Wangfujing Street, such as Beijing apm, Dong'an Market, Wangfujing Department Store, Macao Center and Oriental Plaza as well as Peninsula Beijing Hotel.

The Time City of Macao Center is famous for its top brand lineup, such as Cartier, Vacheron Constantin and Audemars Piguet. Stores for Sarcar Geneve, Ball and Movado are scheduled to be opened this month.

With the largest Hublot watch store in China, the Oriental Plaza is also full of other renowned watch brands, such as Franck Muller, Piaget, Gucci, Rolex, Montblanc and Chopard.

In addition, a Chanel watch store was recently opened in the Wangfujing Department Store, and stores of Tissot, Rado and Blancpain are going to be set up in Beijing apm.

In addition to famous brand watches, Wangfujing Street is also a hub for selling luxury jewelry from China and abroad.

According to research by local authorities, there are 93 jewelry brands in Wangfujing, including 36 overseas brands and 57 domestic ones. Some 61 percent of Beijing's domestic brands are represented there.

Ten jewelry brands are from Hong Kong - one of the largest jewelry processing centers worldwide - while there are six from France, three from the United States, two from Italy, two from Switzerland and two from Belgium.

Jewelry in Wangfujing ranges from premier international brands like Bvlgari and Tiffany to popular names like Chou Tai Fook, I Do and Diamend Jewelry.

Other famous jewelry brands, such as Pandora, Jaff, Yanlong Jade and Zhengdong Jade, recently began to set up stores on Wangfujing Street as well.

Meanwhile, old jewelry stores in Wangfujing have begun to upgrade one by one.

For example, the Kin Hing Lee Jewelry store has expanded its area to 4,000 square meters and extended its business to selling gold and diamonds. The Folli Follie store in Oriental Plaza has also been expanded to become the brand's largest store worldwide.

zhuanti@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/14/2012 page12)