How will the Apple Watch, just released, affect the luxury watch market based in Switzerland? Will the Apple watch stand as a competitor to watches from brands like Rolex, Omega, Tag Heuer, IWC, etc.?

The technology for eWatches is extremely premature. I am sure brand-hype and hipster-pride will move millions out the door but the fact remains that we are years before the product is fully developed. As long as the eWatches require a smartphone nearby in order to offer their (very limited) functionality, they are but a screen extension to your wrist. Not exactly ground-breaking. Nevertheless, even imagining a time when eWatches could become full smartphone-replacements (not an easy task without either unfolding flexible screens or holographic projections), they could not be compared to mechanical marvels of high watchmaking. People will probably wear both, an eWatch on the left and a chronograph on their right.

There are three possibilities: 1) the Apple watch or other similar products in the category slowly eat away the sales of luxury watches, or 2) the category  evolve to become smart wearables and co-exist with traditional watches, or 3) the category will fail and traditional watches are not affected. In the first scenario, the Apple Watch and other similar smart watches do not have to directly compete with luxury watches in order to accomplish this. They merely have to add features that people cannot live without. Since it's difficult to wear two watches without looking like a buffoon, once these devices have must-have features, they will take the valuable wrist time away from even the luxury watches, such as Rolex, IWC and even Patek Philippe. By taking valuable wrist time, perhaps only on weekdays at first or during working hours, these smart watches may slowly erode the sales of lower-end luxury watches (Tag, etc) at first, middle-end (IWC, Panerai, etc) next, and eventually even the high-end. It is likely that the iconic high-end brands and other brands that convey status will survive but the industry may suffer as a whole. In the second scenario, these smart watch devices may evolve in form factor to become smart wearables. For instance, if they change in design in such a way that allows people to wear them along with traditional watches, they will not negatively impact the sale of luxury watches and they may even positively affect them. One clue that this may not happen is that Apple seems to be gunning directly at the luxury watch market both with their design language (traditional watch language) and their use of material (polished stainless steel and even solid gold case). However, we have not yet seen whether this type of a device will do well on the mass market yet, so Apple may change quickly if the Apple Watch does not sell. Final unlikely scenario is that smart watches and smart wearables do not take off among the masses. I think this is unlikely because even if they fail in their first few iterations, they can evolve and become more useful as more capabilities are introduced both by the manufacturer and software developers (e.g. apps on the Apple Watch). However, this is Apple post-Jobs and it is not yet clear that the Apple Watch can succeed in its first iteration or in the future, so if the Apple Watch fails, most others, such as Moto360, LG G? R? watch (terrible name), etc will have difficulties as well.

If anything, it will only increase awareness of luxury timepieces, b/c its not a competitor. (my opinion) I wrote an article on this: https://medium.com/@RobMcNelis/what-the-apple-watch-should-be-41ce11d1e129 And I started an online watch community: http://WatchJudge.com So I might be a little biased. :)

As an almost 20 year old industry veteran, I wrote about it here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140914191525-24601668-the-great-divide-thoughts-on-apple-watch-regarding-fine-timepieces?trk=prof-post

The Apple watch will not directly stand as a competitor to luxury watches because they both belong to completely different industrial fields. Companies  like Rolex, Omega, TAG Heuer or IWC are specialized in machining and  micromechanics, while companies like Apple, Samsung and Motorola are  specialized in hardware and software for consumer electronics.

There is precedence in the tech invasion of the luxury watch market when TI released the world's first LED watch in 1978: http://www.vintagevolts.com/throwback-thursday-texas-instruments-led-watch-1978/. The challenge for Apple is whether its "watch" will still be as functional as a basic time piece as the TI watch remains almost 40 years later. My guess is, over the long haul, like most modern tech products, it will become an impractical curiosity with no replacement batteries readily available and barely function as a watch even if it still worked. Meanwhile, there will be no shortage of early adopters who will be more than happy to pay the entry price just for bragging rights.