Can the Swiss Watchmaker Survive the Digital Age?

_Tombstone_

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/can-the-swiss-watchmaker-survive-the-digital-age.html

Wibbs

Good article. If I was Suunto or Casio I'd be worried about smart watches alright. Among the already niche mechanical producers I wouldn't be nearly so worried, where the majority of buyers wouldn't even dream of a quartz, much less an iPhone on the wrist. It's not the quartz crisis rehashed IMH. There were many factors to that*.

What might cause them problems is internal, not external. Their ever increasing prices and more, their ever increasing service costs and monopolies on same. That and hubris could come back to haunt them.


This bit is incorrect When Swiss companies declined to make quartz devices, inexpensive Japanese watches from companies like Seiko became popular around the world. In the early days the Swiss had more quartz movements than the Japanese, more innovation and often cheaper too. Seiko were a mid range priced watch. What really killed them was the digital display, which was much more an American invention. Traditional analogue watches, quartz or not went rapidly out of fashion. When other Japanese and Hong Kong companies came along later and could rattle them out for buttons it was game over. The strong Swiss franc at the time really hurt them too.