Cartier has become one of the hottest luxury brands in recent years.

As the longtime number three ranked Swiss watch brand worldwide (after Cartier took the two spots a few years back), according to Morgan Stanley estimates, the company is now firmly positioned in that coveted number two spot. The watch and jewelry brand is popular with younger generations such as millennials and Generation Z, which seemingly goes hand-in-hand with the company’s successful celebrity strategy, which includes influential names like Zendaya and Timothee Chalamet.

At this time, the only Swiss watch brand that generates more annual revenue than Cartier is Rolex, and one of Rolex’s most successful timepieces is the GMT-Master II.

Enter Watches and Wonders 2024, and Cartier debuted the Santos De Cartier Dual Time (Ref. WSSA0076). While it’s a dual-time watch with a second time zone that tells time in a standard 12-hour format (with a day/night indicator), versus a GMT that displays the second time zone in a 24-hour format — this is essentially the closest thing to a GMT-Master competitor.

Presented in the largest Santos case, measuring. 40.2 mm x 10.1 mm (47.5 mm lug-to-lug) this stainless steel watch has a sapphire crystal, a blue spinel cabochon in the crown, and 100 meters of water-resistance.

As mentioned above, Cartier is hot as a brand right now, and the Santos is a best-selling model within the men’s watch collection — still, with economic headwinds, staying affordable is as crucial as ever.

A Rolex GMT-Master II starts at $10,700 retail currently, and that has the industry-leading resale of a Rolex sports watch, which is hard to rival. Not to mention, the movement is made in-house by Rolex and is a Superlative chronometer, meaning it leaves the factory adjusted at a rate of -2/+2 seconds a day (after being cased up).

Comparatively, the Santos De Cartier Dual Time is powered by an outsourced 4Hz automatic Sellita SW-330 movement with a 48-hour power reserve, with an in-house module added for the dual time function. Cartier is asking $9,150. While this may be of no consequence considering a Cartier buyer is perhaps not as detail-focused as a Rolex buyer — no matter how you look at it, for a watch nearing ten thousand dollars an in-house movement is pretty much expected.

 

Photo by Cartier.