“Why are Japanese watches not as good as Switzerland?”

Switzerland and Japan are not the countries of origin of the watch industry. According to the information available, the origin of the clock should be in Germany or Italy. However, Switzerland and Japan each occupied an important position in the world watch industry in the later years. So, which one is better? My understanding is that "Japanese watches used to be better than Switzerland, but now Japanese watches are not as good as Switzerland, and it is hard to exceed them in the future."

Japanese watches used to be better than Switzerland.

The role of the beginning of the birth of the clock is to read the time, the criterion for judging the quality of the watch is to see if it is accurate. Since 1866, the Observatory of Neuchatel Neuchatel in Switzerland has started its annual competition. Each watch brand has sent its own products here for a 45-day test, which has undergone five orientations and changes in cold, heat and room temperature. Finally, according to the accuracy ranking, the brands with the highest scores naturally won the honor, and the market sales increased greatly.

It was not until 1963 that Seiko Seiko was the first representative of a Japanese watch brand to participate in the Observatory competition in Nassau, Switzerland. In the first year of the competition, Seiko took the quartz clock (not the watch) and won only the 10th place in the small quartz timer project. In 1964, Seiko went again. This time it was a mechanical watch, but the final result was a sad reminder, only got the 144th and 153th.

At this time, the Swiss were complacent and believed that the quality of Japanese watches was not excellent. The result was that in 1968, everything changed. At this year's Swiss Nassau Observatory suddenly announced the suspension! The reason is that Seiko Seiko's watch actually took the 2nd, 4th, and 8th places all at once (the results of the game will not be revealed until the second year). In order to take into account the face of the country and the brand, the Nassau Observatory can only continue to play with Seiko, and then lose face when playing.


No way, Seiko then moved to the next round of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland to continue the game. At this time, the Swiss felt that the situation was serious and it is likely to repeat the tragedy of the Nassau Observatory. So they started to play the routine. At that time, Seiko got the mechanical watch in Switzerland. The Geneva Observatory in Switzerland changed the rules of the game so that the quartz watch and the mechanical watch could be placed in the same group. Quartz watches are definitely more accurate than mechanical watches due to their inherent advantages (high vibration frequency). Although the final result of the competition was that the quartz watch Beta21 of the CEH electronic clock center in Switzerland won the top three, the fourth to tenth were all mechanical watches of Seiko Japan. This face is so painful!

Quartz, which is cut into a fixed shape, has a characteristic, and when it is applied with a voltage, the quartz generates a stable vibration. For many years, quartz crystal oscillators have been known to take advantage of the electrical properties of crystals to ensure time-speed accuracy. However, there are many technical problems that need to be solved in order to fully apply the advantages of quartz crystal in precision to smaller watches.

On December 25, 1969, Seiko succeeded in miniaturizing the quartz movement and launched the brand's first quartz watch “Seiko Quartz Astron” in Tokyo, demonstrating unprecedented performance. The average monthly error is less than 5 seconds, more than 100 times more accurate than any other watch at the time, and can continue to work for a whole year, 250 times that of most mechanical watches. The quartz revolution began here.

Although Japan is not the inventor of quartz watch technology, Seiko Seiko has painstakingly studied for 10 years. And invented the key technology: the shape of the quartz crystal cutting is adjusted to the shape of the tuning fork; by developing IC (integrated circuit) and stepping motor (time can run one second and one second) to better utilize the light emitted from the crystal oscillator Signal and perform accurate operations.


The most important thing is that Seiko does not monopolize his unique technology on patent issues, but exposes it to the world. Quartz watches are accurate, durable, and gradually loved by consumers. Everyone gave up mechanical watches and bought quartz watches. Switzerland's old watchmaking brands have made a lot of money on mechanical watches. They lack sufficient forecasts for the development of quartz electronic technology, and they lack preparations and have not established a good foundation in time. Leading to the technology change in this field, there is no competition in Japan. At the same time, Japan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and other emerging watch production areas have developed a large number of electronic watches, because of the relatively low cost of labor and high cost, they have greatly squeezed the traditional mechanical watch market.

The technological upheaval caused by the appearance of quartz wrists has led to a significant reduction in the size of the Swiss industry: the total number of employees fell from about 90,000 in 1970 to just over 30,000 in 1984. At the same time, the total number of companies fell from 1600 to 572 in 1970, and the world machinery watch industry was also hit hard.

During this period, the Japanese watch was traversed in the international market, and the Swiss watch industry was beaten to death.

Swiss watches are reborn and defeated


Swiss traditional mechanical watch manufacturers are in crisis. In 1983, when the watch industry faced the most severe crisis, the key figure Nicholas Hayek appeared. Under his leadership, he formed the SMH (Swiss Corporation for Microelectronics and Watchmaking Industries Ltd.) group by acquiring and acquiring two closed watchmaking companies in Switzerland, ASUAG and SSIH. SMH is the predecessor of today's Swatch Group Swatch Group.

“SSIH has two brands, Omega and Tissot, which was founded in 1930 to sell high-quality Swiss watches. The company has consolidated its watchmaking industry in Switzerland by acquiring high-quality parts manufacturers and a large number of low-end watch brands. Self status"

“ASUAG was founded in 1931 to maintain, improve and develop the Swiss watch industry, to achieve a gradual expansion through the acquisition of semi-finished movement manufacturers and a large number of finished watch manufacturers. The company will merge the acquired finished watch manufacturers. Its subsidiary GWC General Watch Co. Ltd. (Longines of Longines belonged to ASUAG at the time)

Nicholas Hayek, then CEO of Hayek Engineering (Zurich), was commissioned to develop a strategic plan to save the two companies. In the first step, his proposal includes the integration of ASUAG and SSIH into SMH. The more detailed solution is to enhance the profitability of the company and turn around.

At that time, the low-cost, high-tech, artistically beautiful and exciting second watch Swatch Swatch has successfully resisted the impact of the Japanese-American quartz watch. Hayek set out to take the second, more important step, to prepare for the two brands Omega and Longines. Hayek’s idea is to upgrade Omega and lower Longines. Identify their product positioning and increase brand loyalty.

To put it simply, it is to shift the original daily necessities of the watch to luxury goods.

Then, Hayek began to play storytelling. He founded the "Louis Brandt" watch brand, which was the first card of the Swatch Swatch group. Louis Brandt was originally the founder of the Omega brand. He founded Omega that year was just 1848, when Switzerland became a unified federal state. Hayek then used this name to launch high-end brands to cater to the market, and the perpetual calendar was sold for 1600,900 Swiss francs in 1984. Then there is no more..... This brand is obviously not heard by most people. Very few people pay the bill, so they fail. Ever since, it was the story of Hayek’s 30 million Swiss francs to buy Blancpain and 300 million Swiss francs to buy Baodi... Hayek spent a lot of money to buy these brands in order to be the brand’s image. For consumers, luxury goods must have a profound historical background. Only in this way can we sell high prices and only get rich profits.

The story is like this. After Hayek’s planning and operation, in five years, SMH Group not only saved hundreds of jobs, but also developed into the world’s most important watchmaking company, thus promoting the revival of the Swiss watchmaking industry. . In less than two decades, the Swatch Group (formerly SMH Group) has formed a comprehensive collection of watchmaking brands, including some of the most well-known brands in the history of the watch industry. The watches produced cater to all ages. Consumer demand.

How are Swiss watches better than Japanese?

This section, I think is the most important part of this article.

Why is it that Japanese watches are not as good as Switzerland? That is because the standard for assessing the quality of watches has changed.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, the criterion for judging the quality of a watch is to see if it is accurate, but it has been a standard half a century ago. The Japanese have revolutionized the quartz watch technology, and with its inherent advantages, it is easy to defeat the mechanical watch with precision. The Swiss watch industry cannot violate the basic scientific common sense (quartz watch is better than the mechanical watch), so it leads to the semi-death of the Japanese watch under the standard of "good watch is right."

When Seiko Seiko obeyed the rules of the Observatory competition, although it was able to achieve good results, Switzerland re-established the rules of competition and could not win the championship, even at the expense of the game.


The reason why the Swiss watch can be reborn is not because Hayek proposed a more precise technical means than the quartz watch, but he tried to change the people's standard definition of "good watch". Watches are no longer just tools for looking at time, but an ornament, a luxury that shows identity. Although before this, there are also some luxury routes in the traditional mechanical watch. But this concept has not been universally recognized by consumers around the world, and Hayek has successfully promoted this standard and made everyone believe it and even enjoy it. This is the most powerful place for Hayek.

This is often said that "first-class people make rules, second-class people use rules, third-class people follow rules."

In Hayek's re-established standards, watches are only as accurate as they are, and most of the value is determined by the brand's historical status. The movement of the movement and the sense of vanity.

Now define the standard of good or bad watch in the Swiss? Can the Japanese watch turn over to the master?

Therefore, Japanese brands are now working hard to study quartz watches and mechanical watches. There is no use for improving accuracy.There is a saying that is good, and now the most important feature of the watch is to take time. Even if the quartz watch. The mechanical watch is made more precise, it will be eliminated by the spike in the end. Because there is now an atomic clock with an error of 1.5 seconds in 1000 years.

After 1976, the two high-end brands GS and KS of Japan Seiko Seiko were silent, and no new products were launched. In 1988, Grand Seiko first launched a quartz watch to meet the market demand, and the GS brand was revived. When Seiko began to wake up and launched a new 9S mechanical movement in 1998, the GS really stood up again. But at this time, the Swiss watch industry has completed the previous transformation. Japan's Seiko Seiko's precision and cost-effectiveness are also unable to return to the global market.

Now, smart Japanese companies don't see the hope of climbing to the top, so they have begun to use the rules. The Swiss make the world believe in "luxury" watches, then I follow the luxury. This is not the case, Japan Citizen Timepiece Co., Ltd. acquired the La Joux-Perret and Arnold & Son brands, disguised Japanese companies as Swiss companies, and made a fortune.

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