Breaking up is not that hard to do.

CEO Georges Kern at the Breitling Summit during Baselworld 2019

Less than a month after the conclusion of Baselworld 2019, Breitling has confirmed an open secret - it will not return for the next instalment in 2020. Instead, the Swiss watch manufacturer will focus on its own communication platform, the Breitling Summit, where media, partners and customers will learn of Breitling’s latest novelties and innovations at a time and place of the brand’s choosing.

The decision to forgo Baselworld 2020 was apparently due to the later timing of the fair, slated to be held from April 30 to May 5 next year, rather than in March, as it has been for the past decade or so.

While he acknowledged the brand had a successful show at Baselworld 2019, Breitling CEO Georges Kern revealed in a statement, “The decisive factor is the timing of Baselworld at the end of April, which cannot be reconciled with our scheduling.”

Baselworld managing director Michel Loris-Melikoff corroborated, saying, “The path Breitling is taking to present the brand as an experience is perfectly in line with our strategy of transforming Baselworld into an experience platform. That’s why we jointly strove to integrate the Summit into Baselworld. In the end, no agreement was reached because the end of April date set for Baselworld 2020… was too late for Breitling.”

However, Kern doesn’t rule out eventually returning to the 102-year-old fair, and praised the direction taken by the new management. “We would like to emphasize that the extensive innovations developed and implemented by Baselworld’s management under Michel Loris-Melikoff in such a short time frame have had a positive impact and can lay the foundations to take Baselworld in a new direction in the future,” Kern said.