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Apple who? TAG Heuer will have record year: CEO

Apple who? TAG Heuer will have record year: CEO

TAG Heuer's CEO said Thursday that the Switzerland-based company will have another record year despite the introduction of Apple (AAPL) Watch and a strong Swiss franc (Exchange:CHF=).

"Of course, not with a growth of five or 10 percent, but if you grow 2 percent on a record year, it means you do another record year, and each time you have a record year, you can't complain," Jean-Claude Biver told CNBC's " Squawk on the Street ". "We know how to cope with the franc...When I started 40 years ago, one dollar was 4 Swiss francs. Today, one dollar is less than one, and we are still selling watches in America."

TAG Heuer announced Thursday that it will launch its own smartwatch in partnership with Intel (INTC) and Google (GOOGL). Biver withdrew some of his earlier criticism of the Apple Watch, which he said last year had no sex appeal.

"All in all, I think it's a brilliant design for Apple, even if for my own tastes, I prefer (something) a little bit more sexy," Biver told CNBC. "We with TAG Heuer, and Google and Intel, we're going to try to design a watch with a lot of emotion, with a lot of tension, with a lot of design and harmony."

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Read More Dollar rallying Thursday after sharp losses

Biver made his remarks a day after the LVMH (Euronext Paris: MC-FR)-owned watch-maker announced it plans to cut or freeze prices in some markets as a way to hedge against challenges presented by the Swiss franc.

TAG Heuer said its prices would drop by an average 8 percent in Switzerland, China, the United States, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. They'll decline by 7 percent in the U.K .and 13 percent in Hong Kong.

The company added that it will not increase prices in the euro zone, Japan or Singapore.

"When a currency goes down by 20 percent, you can't sell your watches at the same price, which means you're going to do 20 percent more margins. The customer wants to buy the right price, and if the (euro (Exchange:EUR01H=)) has dropped by 20 percent, how can we sell our prices at the same prices?" he added.

Biver also said that American consumers would be dissuaded from purchasing TAG Heuer watches without a price adjustment: "We must reduce our prices. We must adapt to the currency. If not, all the Americans will fly to France or elsewhere to buy their watches."

-Reuters contributed to this report.



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