

Swiss watchmakers – An industry ripe for a shake-up - JumpCrisscross
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21571943-industry-ripe-shake-up-time-money

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ImprovedSilence
It's a hard industry to "disrupt", as it already faced it's first disruption
when quartz watches became cheap and ubiquitous. Then it became trivial to be
able to tell the time. Now swiss watches are just a "brand", sold at a premium
to people like me who enjoy a mechanical watch, but can't afford the luxury
independent makers (I've got a Hamilton watch, which is owned by Swatch). The
real watchmakers are small independents making their own movements, selling
watches at 10k plus. Oh, and Rolex still does their own thing too. Russian and
Chinese mechanical watches are good enough these days too, they just dont have
the swiss branding... Also cell phones kinda killed the need for watches too.

So now it's really a fashion statement, and you've got fashion houses like
Gucci selling quartz watches at 200+. If I were a betting man, I'd bet the
fashion watch world is where the money is at. Nobody is getting SUPER rich
selling 10 watches a year at 20-50k. They're making bank selling a $5 quartz
movement at $400 to millions of people a year.

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superprime
I actually started wearing a watch regularly a couple of years ago after
thinking a cellphone was enough for a long time.

There are a couple of advantages: it looks good (maybe the only male fashion
accessory acceptable in a conservative professional environment besides a
wedding band), and also it much easier to glance at and allows me to not check
my phone throughout the day--especially helpful in conversations and meetings
where it'd be rude to pull out your phone.

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thenanyu
I own a few Swiss, German, Japanese and Chinese watches, including some with
the ETA movements mentioned in the article.

But the high end remained, because men's fashion is about storytelling, and
the story goes like this: This highly precise, beautiful timepiece that you
are wearing around on your wrist is put together by hand, powered by what
amounts to a crazy microscopic wind up toy, and is a prime example of
craftsmanship and mechanical engineering.

The very fact that it's not as precise as a $2 quartz watch is the whole
romance of it. Sure, I could use the inelegant solution, but I'd rather have
the cool solution.

When people make adders and ARUs in minecraft, we clap and say well done! The
inelegance and extraneous effort is itself the appeal.

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mimiflynn
I absolutely agree with you. It's the story that adds to the fashion appeal,
but also the mechanical beauty of an automatic or hand wound watch. In such a
digital age where time is so easily tracked with batteries and cell towers,
there is something incredibly appealing in a mechanical watch.

I wonder why they didn't mention the Japanese watch market more. I've been
noticing watches that used to have ETA movements move to Miyota movements and
sell for half price. It even prompted me to recently consider the purchase of
a Breytenbach with an ETA movement because so many of their watches are now
coming with Japanese movements. The crazy thing, though, is that Japanese
movements are practically flawless, I just want the ETA because I know they
are going to become rare... Well, that and they feel more solid when worn, but
that could just be marketing and the Swiss mystique working on my senses.

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tobiasu
Put them out of business with a beautifully designed, responsive HTML5 time
app. Paying users can even have different timezones, and maybe a day-/
nighttime animation with earth circling the sun!

 _scnr_

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dennyabraham
Whatever you think the future of timepieces, there are few other objects that
hold such palpable, visible evidence of both cleverness and craftsmanship. The
most exciting bit about it is that though we don't currently have a large-
scale watchmaking industry in the United States, there is some entrepreneurial
effort to change that:

<http://shinola.com/>

<http://www.hagerwatches.com/page16/index.html>

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Scene_Cast2
What's interesting is the total revenues. Multiplying price by units sold,
Swiss watchmakers sold $20B, and China + HK sold $9B worth of watches [1].
Also, margins are probably higher on the Swiss ones (as Asian watch buyers are
typically more price-sensitive, there is more price competition).

[1]
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An1kIBUYv_3ndDN...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An1kIBUYv_3ndDNXUmZzWHFSQ1YzT29FZnNTN1VHamc&usp=sharing)

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huhtenberg
> _Swiss watchmakers – An industry ripe for a shake-up_

Quick, quick. Someone, start selling luxury watches $5 a pop. That'll show
'em, pesky cheese-eaters!

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johnrgrace
Swiss watches are (mostly) a male jewelry a status symbol to tell others how
much money you have, they are not about telling the time.

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OGinparadise
_THE average Swiss watch costs $685. A Chinese one costs around $2 and tells
the time just as well (see chart.) So how on earth, a Martian might ask, can
the Swiss watch industry survive?_

The average Coach bag costs $500+. A Chinese one costs around $12 and holds
your junk just as well (see chart.)So how on earth, a Martian might ask, can
Coach survive?

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rdouble
Coach bags are made in China since 2009 and the price actually went up when
they moved production there.

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OGinparadise
_Coach bags are made in China since 2009 and the price actually went up when
they moved production there._

so is the Apple iPhone, but no one (maybe other than some economist) calls
them Chinese.

