Swatch cutting all supplies by 2019

[89coupe]

Has this been talked about already? Any significance to other watch makers?

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/13/swatch-swiss-watches/?iid=HP_River

[D'z Nutz]

Meh. This will just leave a big gaping hole that the Chinese or Japanese will rush in to fill.

[ExtraSlow]

From what I've heard, Chinese guys have trouble filling those big holes. :dunno:

[A790]

:(

This is really unfortunate.

[Mibz]

Am I being cynical and ignorant by saying "What a shame that the seller of 1/3 of a country's supply of insanely marked up products has to find a new supplier for some parts"?

Swatch can't be the only company out there making these parts. Somebody else will come along and nobody will suffer in the meantime.

I can't find their financials, but anybody selling a $90,000 watch is likely doing alright.

[spikerS]

Originally posted by D'z Nutz
Meh. This will just leave a big gaping hole that the Chinese or Japanese will rush in to fill.

[benyl]

This isn't new. This is why most manufacturers have gone to in house movements.

[snowcat]

I, for one, am glad. Time to usher in a new era of real watch making.

Not case manufacturing and slapping in a movement.

[flipstah]

Originally posted by Mibz
Am I being cynical and ignorant by saying "What a shame that the seller of 1/3 of a country's supply of insanely marked up products has to find a new supplier for some parts"?

Swatch can't be the only company out there making these parts. Somebody else will come along and nobody will suffer in the meantime.

I can't find their financials, but anybody selling a $90,000 watch is likely doing alright.

Yup. Seiko will most likely fill the gap.

[rage2]

Swiss manufacturers will never use non-swiss movements. It's mostly a non issue, as the patents for ETA's most popular movements have long expired, and Selita is already providing clones for the popular movements to ensure it's still all Swiss made. TAG has been using Selita for their Cal 16 movements for quite some time now.

The biggest problem is the hairsprings. Even though TAG has their new 1887 and 1969 in house movements, they rely on Nivarox (an ETA/Swatch subsidiary) for the hairsprings. Same goes with some of the big in house guys, they all rely on Nivarox. Nobody else makes hairsprings in such volume to fill the gap.

With that being said, it'll be interesting to see which big manufacturer fills in the gap there, although from what I've heard, Nivarox is not planning on phasing out hairspring sales, so there might be no changes at all.

[Str1der]

Old news.

[LollerBrader]

Originally posted by 89coupe
Has this been talked about already? Any significance to other watch makers?


Holy fuck, Swatch?

Adored them as a teen, but recognize them for the clever plastic junk they are now.

And the clever plastic junk market has been long saturated.

Can't even believe their still around, or that they survived this long.

[holden]

Originally posted by LollerBrader


Holy fuck, Swatch?

Adored them as a teen, but recognize them for the clever plastic junk they are now.

And the clever plastic junk market has been long saturated.

Can't even believe their still around, or that they survived this long.

Swatch is huge, they own Omega, Tissot, Longines, etc.

[ga16i]

Originally posted by rage2
Swiss manufacturers will never use non-swiss movements. It's mostly a non issue, as the patents for ETA's most popular movements have long expired, and Selita is already providing clones for the popular movements to ensure it's still all Swiss made. TAG has been using Selita for their Cal 16 movements for quite some time now.


I highly doubt it's 100% all Swiss made. Swiss made definition is something like assembled and inspected in Switzerland, but only 50% of the total value of components has to be Swiss. So you could in theory have a whole pile of cheap Chinese components with one really expensive Swiss part, assemble and inspect in Switzerland and it'd be classified as Swiss made. The Chinese Sea-Gull and otherwise clones of the 2824 and 2892 are really close, mostly interchangeable and seems to perform well.

Good move for Swatch though. Putting the 7750, 2824-2, and 2892 in everything really made them less valuable. Soon you'll need to get a Swatch brand watch to get those tried-and-true movements. I prefer to have Swiss movements in Swiss watches, Chinese movements in Chinese watches, etc and welcome a push for watchmakers to become more vertical.

EDIT: and maybe Tudor will get Rolex movements again :drool:

[rage2]

The Swatch group is beyond massive haha. Google up Hayek saves swiss watch industry to see how pretty much most swiss watch companies in the 70's merged to become what is now the swatch group.

The Swatch brand itself was just a cheap brand to fight the cheap Asian watches of the 80's to bring prestige back to swiss made watches.

[LollerBrader]

Originally posted by holden


Swatch is huge, they own Omega, Tissot, Longines, etc.

Omega's are legendary watches. I don't think this is a credit to swatch and their stupid plastic crap, but moreso a credit to their management who probably made a good buy at the right time.

Still find it sad that stupid-plastic-watch company managed to buy out legendary-watchmaker, but I guess that's the age we live in.

[rage2]

Well the mergers happened first, before the Swatch brand was unveiled, if that makes you feel any better.

The Swatch brand was an important reason why swiss made marketing is still relevant today. Sure it was an entry level brand with cheap plastic watches, but if it wasn't for them, we'd all want Japanese watches today.

At the end of the day, it's all marketing haha. Seiko makes some sick watches that are better than the mid range stuff coming out of Switzerland, but they aren't as coveted as Swiss brands. Their mechanical movements IMO destroys the ETA movements for less money. Hell, even TAG's 1887 movement was based on a Seiko movement, and it's leaps and bounds smoother in operation than the ETA movements that it replaced.

[kobe tai]

Originally posted by ExtraSlow
From what I've heard, Chinese guys have trouble filling those big holes. :dunno:

am i the only one that got that hahaha?

[rage2]

I will not condone a Chinese penis joke. :rofl:

[LollerBrader]

Originally posted by rage2
At the end of the day, it's all marketing haha. Seiko makes some sick watches that are better than the mid range stuff coming out of Switzerland, but they aren't as coveted as Swiss brands. Their mechanical movements IMO destroys the ETA movements for less money. Hell, even TAG's 1887 movement was based on a Seiko movement, and it's leaps and bounds smoother in operation than the ETA movements that it replaced.

I suspect that in a previous age, watchmaking was a fine art, and an art that you have a knowledge and appreciation of, but sadly this has all been trumped by smartphones.

All of those brilliant tinkerers spent decades figuring out how to tweak their watches to greater accuracy, and then it all got replaced by pieces of shit like Blackberreys.

Welcome to the 21st century.

Shiny, but lame.

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by LollerBrader

Still find it sad that stupid-plastic-watch company managed to buy out legendary-watchmaker, but I guess that's the age we live in.

Kind of like how a utilitarian automobile manufacturer was able to buy Audi, Bentley, Porsche, Bugatti etc.

It's been the age for a long time.

[rage2]

Originally posted by LollerBrader
I suspect that in a previous age, watchmaking was a fine art, and an art that you have a knowledge and appreciation of, but sadly this has all been trumped by smartphones.

All of those brilliant tinkerers spent decades figuring out how to tweak their watches to greater accuracy, and then it all got replaced by pieces of shit like Blackberreys.

Welcome to the 21st century.

Shiny, but lame.
Innovation stopped when Quartz was introduced, decades before the smartphone. That's the whole point of this swatch deal, so that manufactures stop relying on them to drive innovation again.

Take a look at TAG's movements in the last few years if you want to see some cool innovations. Belts instead of gears to transfer energy, magnets instead of hairspring for regulation, just mind boggling stuff.