Swatch Watches

Swatch Watches

Swatch watches were born out of fierce competition of the Swiss watch making industry competing against Asian manufacturers. Whilst at one time the Swiss dominated the industry, indeed they had for many years, the Asians had made great cost-cuttings and rove the price of their watches down whilst maintaining excellent quality. This was, in part, due to the cheap cost of labour used in making the watches.

Whilst the Swiss were producing their high quality watches, and losing much of the market share, a report for the Swiss industry concluded they should move into the production of cheaper watches, making low cost analog version fashioned from plastic. These low cost models when then be able to compete with their Asian counterparts.

Designers of Swatch watches found the inspiration for the new watch models they would be creating in such objects as disposable plastic lighters and children’s toys such as lego blocks. Ultimately Swatch created an accurate quartz watch requiring fifty one working parts. This was a great reduction compared to the typical number of parts used to make Swiss watches, which varied typically from ninety to one hundred parts for average complication mechanics. By streamlining the mechanics Swatch found savings could be made on materials (less material used to create the parts) production (less parts to physically put together) and the casing (ultra-cheap plastic rather than expensive steel). Swatch watches had made a breakthrough on one of the most important aspects of their business.

After creating an affordable accessory which many people would be able to buy, Swatch watches had to focus on the look of the watch, marketing and design. They decided that rather than purely functional, a watch is a statement and Swatch watches would offer streetwise design, imagination and provocation. This was channelled through highly colourful and unique designs – Graffiti was one of the key art forms embraced by Swatch watches and used to good effect on their watch range.

Today Swatch watches are the largest manufacturer of finished watches throughout the entire world. Expressed as a percentage the Swatch watch group has 25% of the watch production sales around the globe, producing around one hundred and fourteen million watches in the year two thousand and one.

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