Some of these have become the collectors of today, moving into more traditional, mechanical horology, while at the same time maintaining a certain nostalgia for the watches that caught their eye in the first place. For a lot of people, a Swatch is probably their introduction into the world of watches.” These Swatch’s accustomed a whole generation of children in the ‘80s to getting used to the idea of having a watch on their wrist. Now the Creative Director of Drake’s, a relaxed tailoring brand based in London, Hill points out that, “Swatch watches have become part of the cultural firmament – everyone has owned one at some point. When Swatch produced limited editions, they were still in the triple figure, or even four figure, range – higher than the yearly production of some of the independent brands we’ve covered in the past. If it wasn’t already obvious by this point, the production numbers when it comes to Swatch are on a completely different level compared to what we ordinarily write about. It took them less than 10 years to produce 100 million watches, reaching that figure on April 7th, 1992. The fully automated production line was able to produce watches at a rate that had never been heard of before. This was watchmaking in a way that no Swiss Canton had ever seen. This was far less than the standard quartz movement of the time, which had up to 91 components. All were made of plastic, with fully Swiss made quartz movements that only contained 51 parts. Hayek, on March 1st, 1983, they launched the brand new Swatch brand, with 12 watch lines. More importantly for this article, however, Thomke also became the inaugural CEO of SMH. During the merger, Ebauche SA and ETA SA would consolidate into one company, combing their knowledge and resources to help produce more Swiss made mechanical movements. Shortly before the merger, Dr Ernst Thomke, who was CEO of ETA SA at the time, had invested in injection-moulding machines meaning that it was now possible to produce single-piece plastic watch cases on mass. This joining together of two Swiss giants showed that the traditional watch industry hadn’t given up, but rather was gearing up for a comeback against growing Japanese competition. This eventually led, in 1983, to the merger of ASUAG and SSIH to becoming Société de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie SA (SMH). A business consultant who originally started his professional life in engineering firms, he was brought into SSIH in 1980 to help restructure the company. ![]() The one name that is brought up whenever the creation of the Swatch group is mentioned is that of Nicolas G. Meanwhile, SSIH counted household names such as Omega and Tissot in its portfolio. Specifically, ASUAG controlled ETA SA, along with many other component and ébauche manufacturers, as well as a handful of brands. Combined, they owned an important number of the major brands and movement makers at the time. By then, the largest watch brand in the world in terms of revenue, was Seiko.Īt this time, the Swiss watch industry was mainly dominated by two groups, Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie AG (ASUAG) and Société Suisse pour l’Industrie Horlogére SA (SSIH). To give a sense of the decline to hit Switzerland at the time, the percentage of watches worldwide that came from the country fell from 43% to just 15%, between 19. A fun, easy-going, “non-compete” watch that has far more variations and permutations than any other example on the market today.Īs mentioned above, Swatch was yet another by-product of the Quartz Crisis, in addition to the ensuing global financial downturn that took place in the early 1970s. While the story of these watches was only supposed to go as far as keeping the Swiss watch industry afloat, it has in fact, created a whole new section of watch collecting. However, this in no way takes away from their intrinsic quality – on the contrary. If you only look at the retail price, these are the most affordable and accessible watches that we’ve taken the time to write about here, and by quite some margin. The Swatch was as far away from a traditional “Swiss Made” timepiece as it was possible to be yet the company that they were born from, ETA SA, has probably produced more Swiss movements than anyone else. Machine-made, plastic, monobloc construction with a rubber strap and a quartz movement. However, even these forward-thinking designs didn’t come close to the divergence achieved by the subject of this article. From this impact, radical new designs began to spring forth from some of the oldest houses – see Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe’s steel sports watches. The rise of battery-powered watches from Japan reshaped the Swiss watch world in a matter of years, causing a seismic disruption to a centuries old industry. ![]() By now, everybody knows the story of the Quartz Crisis.
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