Known as a French maison, meaning house, Cartier was established in 1847 Paris by a man named Louis-Francois. It was his three grandsons who travelled the world looking for global inspiration, opening boutiques in London, New York and then beyond. Renowned for the jewels that echo through history - worn by the most glamorous of stars and royalty - it is easy to forget that Cartier is a pioneer in watchmaking. Responsible for the world's first modern wristwatch in 1904, the Santos, driven by advances in aviation and the Brazilian pilot Alberto Santos-Dumont, Cartier had also developed its own in-house watch movement by this time. Since then it has led the way in creative watchmaking - making iconic shapes its signature.
Is a Cartier watch worth the money? In terms of brand value, Cartier rank in at #58 in the world's most valuable brands in 2016 with $6.1 Billion dollars in sales throughout their 286 stores in over 125 countries. It's not easy to say if they are ranked that high because of their jewelry, their watches, or some other reason. But that is very impressive. Because of the size of the Cartier brand, they tend to have more brand value than Omega but this doesn't necessarily have any positive effect on their resale value like with a brand like omega since Cartier's brand value is diversified across both their jewelry and watches.
Omega Watches did a few billion better at $8.8 Billion in sales in 2016, outshining Cartier's $6.1 billion dollar sale figures in the same year. They are the second-highest-ranking Swiss watch brand, with just omega above them. In terms of global brand recognition, Omega has around 70% worldwide brand recognition which is quite outstanding. Omega's parent company also has a greater market share than Cartier's.