FILE PHOTO: CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Swatch Group Nick Hayek attends the opening of the newly built headquarters of the Swatch brand, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, in Biel, Switzerland October 3, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swatch Group's UHR.S sales at its own stores in China are up by almost a quarter during April, the watchmaker's Chief Executive Nick Hayek told Blick newspaper, but the global situation following the coronavirus outbreak remains tough.

“You will hardly believe it, but in our own shops in China where the crisis seems to be over, sales are 24% higher than they were in April 2019,” Hayek said in an interview published on Friday.

But elsewhere nearly all the company’s stores are closed, he said.

“Instead of the normal 60 or 70 emails, there are only three or four,” Hayek said, referring to the daily sales data he gets from the company’s shops around the world.