Audemars Piguet launches The Watch Keepers, its certified pre-owned platform

Audemars Piguet has launched The Watch Keepers, its certified pre-owned watch program, as a digital marketplace now live in Switzerland and Europe. The platform brings together buyers and sellers of pre-owned Royal Oak maker timepieces that the company inspects, authenticates and guarantees through its own service centers.

The launch ends years of anticipation. Former chief executive François-Henri Bennahmias, who left in 2024 and was succeeded by Ilaria Resta, had been weighing the move for much of his tenure. The brand, best known for the Royal Oak, already sells most new watches through company-owned boutiques.

Eligible watches must be at least two years from their first sellout date. Approved sellers register, then complete an online verification of the serial number and proof of ownership before shipping the watch through an insured courier to Audemars Piguet's customer service facilities, where authentication and condition evaluation take place.

High-resolution photographs and a detailed listing follow, backed by a five-point grading system covering the aesthetic condition of the case, dial and bracelet. Sellers then choose between a fixed price and an auction-style bidding format, and they retain control over when the listing goes live.

Throughout the process the watch remains the seller's property and stays in Audemars Piguet's facilities until the sale completes. Buyers receive the timepiece with a travel pouch, a certificate of authenticity and a two-year warranty on functioning and service, delivered once the transaction is final.

About one hundred watches are showcased at any given time, drawn from a selection spanning the brand's collections and eras. The site lists them from headquarters in Le Brassus in close coordination with regional service centers. Buyers complete the same registration as sellers before they can acquire anything.

The Watch Keepers is designed as an online experience rather than an in-store program. Buyers are guided by dedicated Expert Watch Keepers, real Audemars Piguet team members rendered as digital avatars who offer bespoke support while guests browse listings, list a reference for sale or read editorial content.

Marc Montagne, previously of Vacheron Constantin and Jaeger-LeCoultre, leads the program as Director of Audemars Piguet CPO. The former Procter & Gamble executive Ilaria Resta brought him in to run it. Montagne says the platform "responds to strong demand from collectors and reinforces our commitment to supporting the long-term lifecycle of our watches."

Certified pre-owned is not new to the industry, but it gained real momentum when Rolex introduced its own program in December 2022, run through authorized dealers including Watches of Switzerland. Audemars Piguet's version is partly a response to demand for certain models that are often unreachable for first-time buyers.

How the numbers compare with Rolex

Rolex's CPO program has become a significant revenue generator. According to LuxeConsult and Morgan Stanley, it earned about $590 million in 2025, and it passed that figure by September 2026. In the third quarter of 2026 alone, Rolex authorized dealers sold roughly 10,300 certified pre-owned watches for a record $229 million.

Audemars Piguet enters a secondary market growing faster than the primary one. Oliver Müller of the Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult expects pre-owned sales to overtake new watch retail between 2032 and 2038 depending on growth rates. Secondary transactions grew about 7% in 2025 to between CHF 22 billion and CHF 24 billion.

New watch retail reached about CHF 61 billion in the same period, leaving the secondary market at roughly a third of primary value. Three brands dominate resale: Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet account for about 61% of secondary transaction values, against about 45.5% of primary retail value.

In our ranking of luxury watch brands, Audemars Piguet is below Rolex at the top, inside the holy trinity of haute horlogerie alongside Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin. We judge the field on heritage, in-house movement-making, value retention and design language, measures this launch plays directly into.

Our brand profile records that an Audemars Piguet watch starts around $17,000, with the most expensive pieces reaching beyond $100,000. That pricing gives the pre-owned channel a clear opening: models approaching six figures new are precisely the ones a certified second-hand market makes more accessible.

What The Watch Keepers expects to deliver

Beyond sales, the platform is expected to deepen customer contact and gather data and insights from clients and owners, while generating revenue through user fees. The brand positions it as a lifecycle service as much as a marketplace, keeping each timepiece within its care across multiple owners.

The program is open to longtime collectors already known to the brand and to newcomers alike, a deliberate counter to the scarcity that keeps some models out of reach at retail. Audemars Piguet says the watches return to the Manufacture's service centers for the same attention and expertise that first defined them.

For now the marketplace is limited to Europe and Switzerland, but the company says it will progressively expand across regions worldwide, with the United States among the markets under consideration. The Watch Keepers site will list about 100 Audemars Piguet watches at a time.