Rolex

A company owned by a charitable trust, which publishes no numbers at all and still sets the price of the whole industry.

Big name·Global·Founded 1905·Members

At a glance

Founded: 1905 in London, as Wilsdorf and Davis, importing Swiss movements into England.¹
Founded by: Hans Wilsdorf, a German businessman, with his brother-in-law Alfred Davis, a watch dealer.¹
Home: Geneva, since Wilsdorf moved the business out of England in 1919 to escape post-war taxes on luxury imports.¹
Owned by: The Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, a private trust and the company's only shareholder, which has owned it since 1960.¹¹¹
What it sells: Wristwatches, under the Rolex and Tudor names.¹
Size: Sales estimated at CHF 11 billion in 2025 on about 1.15 million watches, which Rolex will not confirm.²

How it got here

1905

1 of 3

Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis open in London, importing Hermann Aegler's Swiss movements and putting them in cases.¹ The watches went out to jewellers, who printed their own names on the dial.¹

Wikipedia: Rolex ↗

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Sources for what is above

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