Just like Messi and Ronaldo in the football world, Rolex and Omega stand tall, revered for their precision, innovation, and iconic designs in the watch world. In the watch community, they also have a huge number of fan groups, and the comparison between Rolex and Omega among watch fans has never stopped. It can be often heard that which one is stronger or weaker, whose movement is better, whose technology is higher, and who is more durable.
Today we will discuss who is the winner.
In fact, Rolex and Omega basically belong to the popular luxury watches, or you can say the difference is not in the watch.
They are “all-around” watches, there is nothing perhaps complicated style (although Omega rarely has a center tourbillon design), it can be said that the Rolex and Omega watches are the best option for daily watch. In the price range of $8000 to $15000, they are basically unbeatable.
Movimiento
Well let’s talk about the technology. Firstly the movement comparison.
Rolex and Omega’s main movement is 3135/3235, 8800/8900.
Rolex 3135/3235 power reserve 48 hours to 70 hours (2-3 days), Omega 8900/8800 power reserve 55 hours to 60 hours (2 days and a half or so), the power reserve is almost at a same level. Rolex 3135/3235 and Omega 8900/8800 movements both use non-calibrated weights to fine-tune, and the blue niobium hairspring used by Rolex and the silicon hairspring used by Omega are both anti-magnetic.
The Rolex Super Chronometer standard +2/-2; the Omega Extreme Chronometer 0/+5 (only 1 second difference) are both above the Swiss chronometer standard.
Rolex 3135/3235, Omega 8900/8800 are all available in calendar-less, calendar, dual time, day date and other function models. There is difference between the movement but almost same for a daily watch.
Performance significantly better than some brands of self-produced movement, but you will see the gap when you compare to the Blancpain 1315 movement.
Service
In terms of after-sales, Rolex provides a warranty of five years, while Omega is four years. Rolex’s warranty time is the absolute best among the other brands. And the cost of repair for both brands basically starts at $500, which is quite affordable.
Marketing
So in terms of overall quality, Rolex and Omega are almost identical.
However if you look at the marketing strategies, the difference is big. One obvious phenomenon is that it is difficult to buy a popular Rolex watch, always out-of-stocks. Omega instead, you can buy a watch easily.
It is said that Rolex annual production is more than a million, but why many models on the market are out of stock? In fact, simply put Rolex’s marketing strategy is “hunger marketing”.
Therefore, when the buyer can’t purchase the new watch, they will put their attention on the pre-owned market.
Well, let’s talk about Omega. Omega’s marketing strategy is completely different from Rolex. Regardless of popular or not, the supply is always sufficient. And Omega has much more models than Rolex, so you can have more options from Omega. For example the chronograph style watch model, Rolex has only the Daytona, and we all know how hard it is to buy a Daytona, while Omega has a lot of different chronographs, such as the Speedmaster series, the De Ville series, and the Seamaster series, all of them have chronograph models.
Simply Rolex has basically only one watch for each function, while Omega has many models to replace them. For Omega, it has sufficient supply, so the pre-owned Omega watches are in a different situation than Rolex.