Loaded with iconic Royal Oak design cues, most notably the octagonal case, eight-screw bezel, and small-patterned dial, the strapless design nods heavily to the 1979 Royal Oak Pocket Watch reference 5691. Inside is an all-new hand-wound version of Swatch’s Sistem51 caliber, a movement that is fully automated. Swatch has 15 active patents on this new version, and has also achieved an impressive 90-hour power reserve. There’s even an anti-magnetic Nivachron balance spring developed in collaboration with Audemars Piguet.
Swatch’s 1986 POP line, whose watch heads could actually be popped out of their bezels and clipped elsewhere, has been plundered here to create a design that allows the Royal Pops to pop out of the bioceramic holder’s clasps as well.
Why is there no wrist watch?
The simple logic of the pocket watch design authorized by Audemars Piguet, which, unlike Omega, is not part of the Swatch group, is that it does not upset its existing high-net-worth customer base. Royal Oak owners will no doubt be breathing a sigh of relief now that they know that a copy of their coveted piece will not be on the market for just a few hundred dollars.
However, this does not mean that the AP would have been financially harmed had it clearly delivered what the public wanted. Omega, which was also concerned about its sales when it showed off in-house prototypes of the MoonSwatch, enjoyed a significant 50 percent increase in sales after the launch of its budget cousin.
The Royal Pop pocket watch is, cleverly, a sideways move designed to generate as much hype as possible while being as safe as possible for the AP brand. The Royal Oak’s design language is unambiguous, but the wrist is off limits. With Swatch, Audemars has built something real for its avid enthusiasts; He didn’t build for them what they wanted.
What does Swatch gain from this? Valuable PR too, but much more importantly, the potential to generate much-needed sales. In 2025, the group recorded a 6.75 percent decline in sales and a staggering 55.6 percent decline in operating profits, primarily due to a sharp decline in demand for its watches in China, Hong Kong and Macau. Swatch Group shareholders are not happy.
How will China come to the rescue?
This is where the story gets interesting for reasons neither Swatch nor AP had planned. While Swatch has revived its POP design, allowing the Royal Pop to be removed from its case, within hours of the Royal Pop announcement, third-party band brands have exploited this possibility, eyeing fast-fashion tweaks that transform the watch from pocket to wristwatch. Because Royal Pops are designed to be clipped on and off of lanyards and desk holders, they should easily attach to bracelets and straps specifically designed to receive them.
The real-time market realized that the Swatch and AP pocket watch excitingly contained everything needed structurally to deliver the same wristwatch promised by the AI concepts. All that is required now is to attach the case to the wrist.
