BASEL, Switzerland — After opening hundreds of stores in China in recent years, some watch companies are facing an inventory glut and cutting back their retailing presence there.

Shipments of timepieces to China from Switzerland, the world’s dominant luxury watch production center, have fallen below the levels of two years ago, after setting a record in 2012.

“The gold rush in China is over,” said Francois-Henry Bennahmias, chief executive of Audemars Piguet, a Swiss watch company that is closing six of its 22 mainland stores. “We are going to slow down in China and take every step there much more carefully.”

Swiss watch exports to China dropped 26 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, to 323 million Swiss francs, or $349 million, according to data released in the past week by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. Exports to Hong Kong fell 9 percent, to 910 million francs.

Overall, however, Swiss watch exports rose 2.3 percent in the first quarter, to 4.73 billion francs, buoyed by Middle Eastern and some European markets, particularly Germany and Britain.

“People simply went overboard about China, thinking that there could be no issue with suddenly opening 40 or 50 stores,” said John Simonian, a watch distributor and owner of Westime, a watch retailer based in California. “The stores in China are now full of inventories, with no guarantee that they can all get sold.”

Affluent and travel-hungry Chinese are increasingly buying overseas. About half of Chinese spending on luxury goods occurs abroad, according to a study released in December by the consulting firm McKinsey. As a result, “50 square meters in Paris could be much more meaningful now than having those same 50 square meters in China,” said Bennahmias of Audemars Piguet.

The reassessment comes even though Chinese shoppers’ spending on luxury goods has grown to 25 percent of the world total, compared with 20 percent for U.S. shoppers, according to a study released in December by Bain, another consulting firm. Still, Bain advised caution in light of the slight decline in luxury sales in China last year.

“Luxury brand stores in China need to deliver the same consumer experience in China as in France and Italy, or risk further deferral of spending to tourism,” Bain wrote.

Rather than focusing solely on China’s purchasing power, luxury goods companies should have paid closer attention to changes in Chinese travel and consumer habits, according to some executives.