Equipped with iconic Royal Oak design cues, notably the octagonal case, eight-screw bezel and Petite Tapisserie-patterned dial, the strapless design heavily references the 1979 Royal Oak pocket watch reference 5691. Inside is an entirely new hand-wound version of Swatch’s Sistem51 calibre, a movement that is completely assembled by machine. Swatch holds 15 active patents on this new iteration and has also achieved an impressive 90 hours of power reserve. There is also an antimagnetic Nivachron balance spring, which, incidentally, was co-developed with Audemars Piguet.
Swatch’s 1986 POP line, whose watch heads could be physically taken out of their frames and clipped elsewhere, has been plundered here to create a design that allows the Royal Pops to ping from their bioceramic holder clips as well.
Why is there no wrist watch?
The simple logic of pocket watch design commissioned by Audemars Piguet, which, unlike Omega, is not part of the Swatch Group, is that it doesn’t upset its existing high-net-worth customer base. Royal Oak owners will no doubt be breathing a sigh of relief now that it’s been confirmed that a version of their iconic pieces won’t be hitting the market for just a few hundred bucks.
However, this does not mean that the AP would have suffered financially if it had delivered what the public clearly wanted. Omega, which was also concerned for its sales when the original Moonwatch internal prototype was shown, enjoyed a massive 50 percent increase in sales following the release of its budget cousin.
The Royal Pop pocket watch is, cleverly, a sidestep designed to generate as much publicity as possible, yet remain as safe as possible for AP’s brand. The Royal Oak design language is unmistakable, but the wrist is off limits. With Swatch, Audemars created something real for its aspiring fans; It didn’t make them what they wanted.
What does Swatch get from this? Valuable PR too, but more importantly, much-needed sales are likely to be affected. In 2025, the group reported a 6.75 per cent decline in sales and a massive 55.6 per cent decline in operating profit, mainly 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 that neither Swatch nor AP planned for. As Swatch revived its POP design, allowing the Royal Pop to be removed from its housing within hours of the Royal Pop’s announcement, third-party strap brands seized on this potential, looking for fast fashion adaptations that would transform the watch from pocket to wristwatch. Since the Royal Pops were designed to go in and out of lanyards and desk stands, they should also be easily clipped into bracelets and straps made specifically to receive them.
The market recognized in real time that Swatch and AP’s pocket watch clearly contained everything that was structurally needed to deliver the wristwatch that the AI concepts had promised. Now just needed something to attach the case to the wrist.
<a href