Jean-Claude Biver, the watch division president of LVMH — which owns brands including Bulgari, Chaumet, Hublot, TAG Heuer, and others — has revealed that the French luxury conglomerate plans to enter the smart watch space to take on Apple.

Making no attempt to disguise their plans to ride on the Apple Watch’s coattails, Biver said that Apple’s presence “will help create a new class of clients enthusiastic about luxury watches,” who LVMH will target with their forthcoming devices that will start at around $1,600.

This despite telling the Condé Nast International Luxury Conference back in April that Biver questioned the “longevity” of Apple’s new wearable device. What a difference three months make!

While LVMH makes some beautiful watches, the interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt doesn’t offer any tantalizing details about specific ways the company hopes to challenge Apple’s dominance in the market place.

Instead, Jean-Claude Biver describes his planned Android-like strategy of, “winning market share, rather than being driven by specific sales and profit targets.”

Apple Watch sales have yet to be officially confirmed by Apple, although we know that they outsold every Android Wear device ever within their first 24 hours. Although one recent report suggested sales have fallen by 90 percent since launch, a subsequent set of figures claims that Apple has sold more than 4.5 million Apple Watches in just two months.

Source: Vogue