Swatch is a Swiss watch company founded in 1983 by Ernst Thomke, Elmar Mock, and Jacques Müller. It is a subsidiary of The Swatch Group. The Swatch product line was developed as a response to the "quartz crisis" of the 1970s and 1980s, in which inexpensive, battery-powered, quartz-regulated watches were competing against more established European watchmakers focused on artisanal craftsmanship producing mostly .
The name Swatch is a contraction of "second watch", its concept of "low-cost, high-tech, artistic and emotional" watches marketed as casual, disposable accessories.[ Company History The Swatch Group]
History
Swatch began development in the early 1980s under the leadership of the then
ETA SA's CEO
Ernst Thomke with a small team of watch engineers led by Elmar Mock and Jacques Müller.
Conceived as a standard timekeeper in plastic, Franz Sprecher,
Swatch was originally intended to re-capture entry level market share lost by Swiss manufacturers of mechanical watches and the subsequent growth of Japanese companies such as Seiko and Citizen in the 1960s and 1970s. It was also meant to re-popularize at a time when had achieved wide popularity.
In 1983, the group hired Jacques Irniger—who formerly served as the marketing executive for Colgate and Nestlé—to launch the swatch.
The first collection of twelve Swatch models was introduced on 1 March 1983 in Zürich, Switzerland. Initially the price ranged from Swiss franc 39.90 to CHF 49.90 but was standardized to CHF 50.00 in the autumn of the same year. Sales targets were set at one million timepieces for 1983 and 2.5 million for the year after. With an aggressive marketing campaign and relatively low price for a Swiss-made watch, it gained instant popularity in its home market.
Lebanese entrepreneur Nicolas G. Hayek, together with a group of Swiss investors, took over a majority shareholding of Swatch during 1985 in the newly consolidated group under the name Societe Suisse de Microelectronique et d'Horlogerie, or SMH. He became chairman of the board of directors and CEO in 1986. Later he changed the company's name to Swatch Group.
This combination of marketing and manufacturing expertise restored Switzerland as a major player in the world wristwatch market. Synthetic materials were used for the watch cases as well as a new ultra-sonic welding process and assembly technology.[Bold, Kathryn, "Swatchdogs on the Lookout : Promos give collectors a chance to meet the inventor and pick up some of the 'vintage' timepieces for face value", Los Angeles Times, 3 January 1992] In 1997, the Swatch Group opened about 60 stores worldwide.
Product lines
There are families under the Swatch brand:
Swatch Originals
The
Originals are plastic-cased watches. They are available in various sizes, shapes, and designs. The Originals consist of various sub-families as well.
Swatch Irony
The
Irony family contains all the metal-cased watches produced by Swatch. These include both quartz-driven and
automatic watch mechanical watches that can be serviced. The automatics have a 21J/23J
ETA SA 2842 movement. This movement is exclusive to Swatch and is derived from 2824 to 2822.
Irony Chronograph was introduced in 1996 (type/code: YCS101).
Swatch Skin
The
Skin family contains two sub families:
Original Skin and
Skin Chronograph. The Original Skin was introduced on 6 October 1997 as a thinner version of the original Swatch watch. It is ultra thin, standing at , hence the name Swatch Skin. The Swatch Skin later went on to enter the
Guinness Book of World Records as the world's thinnest plastic watch. The Swatch Chronograph is simply the Swatch Skin with a chronograph function, adding two additional buttons on the side of the watch.
Bijoux
The
Bijoux line is a jewelry line Swatch released in the new millennium; it partnered with
Swarovski to encrust the Bijoux line of watches.
Digital Touch
The
Digital Touch line, launched in 2011, derives its name from the
touchscreen technology used. In contrast to other Swatch families, a digital
LCD shows the time. Various models in different colors of the display are available, which include
backlighting for reading in the dark.
[ Swatch Touch Watches. A Blog to WATCH. September 27, 2011. Retrieved March 3, 2018][ Swatch digital touchscreen models with backlight]
Bellamy and Pay
These Swatch models of wristwatches with a quartz movement are additionally equipped with a near-field communication (NFC) chip to accommodate contactless payment. As an improved second generation, Swatch introduced the model
Pay for the Chinese market in July 2017. Unlike the Bellamy,
Pay can be programmed and activated in Swatch shops using a
Cloud Computing service operated by several Chinese banks.
[Sarah Clark: Swatch partners with eleven Chinese banks for second-generation payments watch. In: NFCworld, July 17, 2017. Retrieved March 3, 2018]
Sistem51
Swatch introduced
Sistem51 at Baselworld 2013 as "the world's first mechanical movement with entirely automated assembly."
The movement uses 51 components anchored to a central screw with
automatic watch winding and a 90-hour power reserve – and is 100%
Swiss made on a automated assembly line in clean-room conditions, without human intervention.
The movement is permanently sealed in its case with structural adhesive securing both the acrylic crystal over the dial and the case back, making it invulnerable to environmental conditions including moisture, dust or foreign objects – and also making it maintenance free – i.e., impossible to service.
The movement is made from ARCAP, an anti-magnetic alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc – designed to free the movement from the need for adjustment. The escapement has no manual adjustment or regulator; the initial rate is factory laser-set. Swatch reports precision of ±10 seconds per day.
Swatch x You
In 2017 Swatch introduced
Swatch x You, a product that allows one to design their own Swatch by selecting the category and design one wishes to use. An outline of a watch is superimposed over the user's image to assist with designing.
Bioreloaded
The
Bioreloaded line was introduced by Swatch in 2020, consisting of a relaunch of Swatch's 1983 debut collection, but partially made from "bio-sourced" materials. The case, strap, and strap clasp of a Bioreloaded watch is made of a material derived from the seeds of the castor plant, while the packaging material is a biodegradable "paperfoam" created with tapioca and potato starch.
Swatch x Omega
The
Swatch x Omega SA collaboration debuted in 2022, with
MoonSwatch, a collection of reimagined Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonwatches in eleven different color variants themed after the Sun, Moon, and planets of the
Solar System. The collection uses the 4 jewel chronograph quartz movement used in other Swatch chronographs and Swatch's BIOCERAMIC composite material.
The MoonSwatch collection was released March on 26, 2022, at select Swatch stores.
Pride collection
In May 2023, Swatch released a Pride collection of rainbow watches to support the LGBTQ+ cause worldwide. The collection has six watches with different monochrome colours that corresponds to the colours of the gay
pride flag. In Malaysia, the Home Ministry banned the sale of the watch and raided 13 Swatch outlets to seize and impound 172 watches over three days in May.
The company reported that Malaysia was the only country which seized the watches.
Swatch filed a lawsuit against the Home Ministry and the Malaysian government, challenging the legality of the seizure in July 2023.
The ban was gazetted only in August 2023.
In a September 2023 interview, Malaysian Prime Minister
Anwar Ibrahim said that the raid was 'excessive', but defended Malaysia's current stance on the LGBT issue.
In November 2024, the Malaysian High Court ruled that the raid was conducted without a warrant therefore was deemed illegal. The judge, Justice Amarjeet Singh Serjit Singh, also noted that the ban was imposed only after the watches were seized, which meant that no laws were violated in May 2023. The court ordered the returned of the seized watches to the company.
See also
Bibliography
External links
