On Tuesday, the auction house Phillips said its spring season generated $507 million in auction sales, a 60 percent increase from a year earlier, as a record-breaking watch business and stronger demand for high-value consignments helped propel one of the house’s best performances in recent years.
The auction house said average lot value increased 55 percent over the same period, while maintaining a 90 percent sell-through rate by lot. Evening sales achieved a 94 percent sell-through rate by lot and 99 percent by value, and the season’s hammer-price-to-low-estimate index reached 165 percent.
Watches accounted for $235.5 million of the total—nearly half of Phillips’ auction sales this spring—proving how central the category has become to the company’s business. The house said its Geneva sale was the most successful watch auction ever held, while its New York and Hong Kong watch auctions also set regional records.
“These results reflect not only the strength of the market, but the progress we have made as a business over the past year,” Phillips Chief Executive Martin Wilson said in a statement, attributing the gains to exceptional property, global participation and sustained demand.
The results arrive at a time when the broader auction market has shown signs of growing more selective. Recent evening sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s demonstrated that collectors remain willing to compete aggressively for museum-quality works while proving far less forgiving of more ordinary material.
Phillips’ own numbers point to a similar dynamic. The auction house said its average lot value increased 55 percent from a year earlier, while maintaining a 90 percent sell-through rate by lot across the season.
Several marquee consignments helped drive the season, including the collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr., which realized $18 million, and property from the estate of Tina Hills, which has brought in $14.2 million across multiple categories, with additional works still scheduled to come to auction later this year. Together, however, the two collections represented only a fraction of the roughly $188 million increase in auction sales over last spring.
The season’s top fine-art lot was Andy Warhol’s Sixteen Jackies, which sold for $16.2 million during Phillips’ New York Modern & Contemporary Art evening sale. Among the standout watch results was F.P. Journe’s Chronomètre à Résonance “Souscription No. 007,” which realized $13.9 million in New York, while a rare Patek Philippe Ref. 2499 sold for HK$80.4 million ($10.3 million) in Hong Kong.
Phillips also pointed to continued growth among newer collectors. First-time buyers accounted for 40 percent of purchasers this spring, up from 36 percent a year ago, while Millennials and Gen Z collectors represented one-third of bidders and buyers, compared with 25 percent during the same period last year. Nearly 70 percent of works sold online, up from 62 percent in spring 2025.
