he Rolex Datejust offers a revealing starting point for a discussion about the pre-owned watch market. According to José Gaztelu, it has become Rolex’s largest revenue-contributing collection on Chrono24, reflecting an appetite for versatile, everyday watches among younger buyers and women in particular.

For the marketplace’s CEO, this shift is one sign of a broader change in collecting habits following the correction that began in 2022. Europa Star asked him what Chrono24’s data reveals about demand today, how the industry should read these signals and where the platform sees room to grow.

Europa Star: Based on Chrono24’s market data and ChronoPulse insights, what are the most significant shifts you have observed in the pre-owned and collectible watch markets over the past year?

José Gaztelu: The clearest trend is that the market has kept broadening, and in a healthy way. Prices are firm and have risen again over the past year. More brands are winning real demand: Cartier, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin have all built genuine followings and are making watches people want to own and wear.

Younger buyers keep coming in, and the collectors who drove the boom are still here, buying with more intent. Rolex is still the largest brand by some way, but the field around it has real depth now, and that is the healthier picture. A market with several strong names is a stronger market, and that is the direction the last few years have taken us.

If you had to choose just one number that best captures current market evolution, what would it be, and why?

The share of younger buyers’ money going into classic, dressier watches. For the under-30s that has roughly doubled since the boom, from around 6% to almost 11% of what they spend. The whole speculative sports-watch phase has faded, and younger buyers are the ones leading that: they want a watch they can actually wear every day.

I like that figure, because it shows people buying to wear rather than to trade. And it says something about the correction after 2022. What is left is a broader market, resting on people who buy things they mean to keep.

And if you had to choose one watch reference that best symbolises the current state or direction of the market, which one would it be?

If I have to name one, I would widen it to a collection, the Datejust. For years the Submariner, the GMT-Master II and the Daytona defined what people wanted from Rolex, and those references still sell in volume. But the Datejust is the one that captures where things are heading.

On Chrono24 it has become Rolex’s single largest revenue-contributing collection, at around 28%. It is a versatile everyday classic that works across a wide range of buyers, and people buy it to wear and to keep. Younger buyers and women in particular have moved toward it. A dressier watch overtaking the hyped sports models tells you the market has calmed down.

After the speculative boom and subsequent market correction, do you feel the pre-owned watch market has entered a more mature phase? If so, what does that maturity look like?

Yes, clearly. The speculation has drained out, and what is left is real demand, people buying watches to own and to wear. At the peak, much of the demand came from buyers chasing a few references for resale. That crowd has thinned. The buyers who remain collect with more intent, and across a wider set of brands.

Prices are firm and have been climbing for more than a year now. The index is well above where it was before the boom; it corrected hard after 2022 and has been recovering steadily since. Scarcity still moves individual watches, as the discontinued steel Pepsi GMT-Master II has shown, but the weight of the market now sits with people buying for the long term.

How is Chrono24 adapting to new collecting habits?

Our job is to meet buyers where they are now, which means running a platform built for a broad field rather than a few hyped names. People start with one brand and move across others as their taste develops, so selection across brands matters more than it did in the boom. And so does discovery, which is something we keep investing in, so buyers can find the right watch and see what comparable pieces are being offered at, before they commit.

Underneath all of it sits trust, because buying across borders only works if people can rely on the process. That is what Buyer Protection and our Certified programme are for. Buyer Protection covers every order, and Certified is open to any qualifying watch across brands, from professional dealers and private sellers alike. Younger collectors usually start with something accessible like a Seiko Prospex, a Longines HydroConquest or a Tissot T-Classic, and move up from there as their taste develops. Getting that first purchase right is how we keep them.

What do you think the traditional watch industry still misunderstands about the pre-owned market and the motivations of today’s secondary-market buyers?

That pre-owned competes with their primary business. In reality the secondary market is often the front door to their own brands. Most buyers under 40 have their first serious encounter with a brand second-hand, on a platform like ours, well before a boutique.

That first watch shapes whether they stay with the brand for years to come. And the journey keeps going: buyers usually start with an accessible classic, then move to the sports icons as their taste develops, and the most experienced go on to rarer, higher-priced pieces.

The other point is about the buyer. During the boom it was easy to assume everyone was flipping. The people buying now mostly want to wear and keep what they own. The brands that see today’s pre-owned buyer as their future client are building the strongest position for the next decade.

Brands have become increasingly active in certified pre-owned watches. How do you adapt to this evolution? Do you see it as a threat to your own model?

We welcome it. When a brand puts its name and its watchmakers behind certified pre-owned, it is telling its own clients that a used example is worth owning with confidence, and that takes real conviction. It is good for buyers and good for the category.

It does not change what we do. A brand programme is about one brand, and a collector’s interest rarely stops at a single name. On Chrono24 you can buy and sell across every brand in one place, and our Certified programme applies the same authentication standard across brands, for professional dealers and private sellers alike.

We see the brand programmes and our marketplace as serving the same goal from different angles: more trust in pre-owned, and the more of that there is, the better for everyone.

Price transparency has been one of Chrono24’s major contributions to the watch market. Has greater transparency fundamentally changed the balance of power between brands, retailers, dealers and collectors?

It has changed the balance, mostly in favour of the informed buyer. Price knowledge used to sit with the trade, and a buyer entering a transaction had little idea what a reference was really worth. What Chrono24 brought is the ability to see what comparable watches are being offered at, across thousands of listings, and to follow how prices move over time through ChronoPulse.

Buyers see live offer prices on the platform, and they see aggregated, transaction-based price development through our index and our reports. That gives both sides a shared reference point they did not have before. It has not reduced the value of a good dealer. It rewards the ones who price fairly and know their stock, because an informed buyer recognises a fair offer faster.

Are younger collectors entering the market differently from previous generations, for example in the brands they follow, the price points they consider, or the way they buy and sell watches?

Yes. They tend to start online, so their first serious watch is often a used one bought on a platform rather than through a boutique and a waitlist. They follow a wider set of brands than an older buyer did, which is a large part of why the field has broadened.

They still favour Rolex more than any older group does, and they are also the quickest to spread their spending across other brands as their taste develops. And they do their homework: they compare and read up before they commit.

What are your priorities for Chrono24 over the next few years? Do you see the company primarily evolving as a marketplace, a data platform, a trusted intermediary, or something broader?

We are the largest marketplace for luxury watches in the world and we are pulling further ahead. We do it through trust and the largest selection globally, and that is the standard we are setting for the industry. We are making it routine for a buyer in London to purchase from a dealer in Tokyo with confidence, and no one else can match that reach.

Now we push it further: sharper authentication, smoother shipping and customs, and more owners ready to sell, which keeps the market liquid. The United States is where we see huge growth today and expect even more ahead, and it is central to the next chapter. We are already the first place most collectors look, and the years ahead are about making that true everywhere, for every brand, and for the first-time buyer as much as the seasoned collector.