Swatch group says "Fuck You!- Make yer own damn movements!!"

[houndoggie 58]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8863184

 

Sounds interesting.

[greg_r 81]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8863184

 

Sounds interesting.

 

Interesting - this could see the Chinese becoming a legitimate force in watch movements...

[Luthier 1]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8863184

 

Sounds interesting.

 

Interesting - this could see the Chinese becoming a legitimate force in watch movements...

 

Third parties started to negotiate with Seagull and Shanghai Watch Co, Ltd a year ago, so... you're right.

 

And then all our reps will become "no difference" with their gens.

[dingle 57]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8863184

 

Sounds interesting.

 

Interesting - this could see the Chinese becoming a legitimate force in watch movements...

 

Third parties started to negotiate with Seagull and Shanghai Watch Co, Ltd a year ago, so... you're right.

 

And then all our reps will become "no difference" with their gens.

 

this means the cost of my rep just went up.......

[ebzen02 341]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8863184

 

Sounds interesting.

 

Interesting - this could see the Chinese becoming a legitimate force in watch movements...

 

Third parties started to negotiate with Seagull and Shanghai Watch Co, Ltd a year ago, so... you're right.

 

And then all our reps will become "no difference" with their gens.

 

this means the cost of my rep just went up.......

Time to get a Chinese Tourbillon..

[greg_r 81]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8863184

 

Sounds interesting.

 

Interesting - this could see the Chinese becoming a legitimate force in watch movements...

 

Third parties started to negotiate with Seagull and Shanghai Watch Co, Ltd a year ago, so... you're right.

 

And then all our reps will become "no difference" with their gens.

 

LOL - interesting concept, no?

[houndoggie 58]

What will happen is the rise of Sellita.

 

I think SeaGull is already the biggest (by volume) movement maker in the world, so business as usually for them.

 

Also, I think Seiko would be smart to jump in with a nice ETA 2824 competitor.

[PatronSaintofChainsaws 1]

They need to clone the SF240, among other things.

 

Just saying.

[Luthier 1]

Time to get a Chinese Tourbillon..

 

You can't imagine their prices.

I contacted few factories, who make turbies, and got their price lists.

[trailboss99 994]

Hmmmmm.

 

/me prepares to hoard ETAs.

 

 

 

Col.

[sfa437 0]

Been a long time coming- they've been scaling back sales of ebauches for quite some time. 2010 was when they stated they'd cut off supply altogether.

 

That was the main impetus behind the cloned ETA movements.

[offshore 0]

@Luthier, As long as you want 1k+!

 

What everyone is missing here still, is that there are NO parts available for Chinese movements, to speak of.

At least ETA were a parts supplier, however if that dries up, we will be very much swapping movements in and out.

Problem is the retail price of a Chinese movement doesn't bear much correlation to its cost, as it has passed thru too many hands coming down the chain, to be made available in "retail" quantities.

 

The other area for concern, is that if there are few parts, what are the "real" watchmakers going to do for a living?

I can see the day when their numbers will diminish even more rapidly than currently.

 

 

O/S

[NFleischer 4,355]

This is old news. i thought october was the deadline for them to stop selling the eta

mov'ts. that's why for ex. WM9 had asked for down payments to buy the eta's in advance for the

subs. its been getting much harder to get gen etas soon i guess there won't be any. luckily many of the reps use the A7750 anyway

and the clone etas are ok.still, i'd rather have the real deal. most 'real' etas are probably clones already.

Edited December 19, 2009 by NFleischer

[10:10 Watch Repair 1]

Thanks for the link.

 

Interesting - this could see the Chinese becoming a legitimate force in watch movements...

 

That is interesting.

[greg_r 81]

What everyone is missing here still, is that there are NO parts available for Chinese movements, to speak of.

At least ETA were a parts supplier, however if that dries up, we will be very much swapping movements in and out.

Problem is the retail price of a Chinese movement doesn't bear much correlation to its cost, as it has passed thru too many hands coming down the chain, to be made available in "retail" quantities.

 

Nope - not missing it. Just thinking of how Chinese electronics manufacturing and distribution models suddenly changed when they became legit. One minute they're making complete products and things like circuit boards for low cost western electronics using their own components - but not actually selling those components separately. Next, however, they're finding that they can undercut the western component manufacturers too, so are selling transistors, ICs etc at the quality end of the market - even making and selling esoteric stuff like thermionic valves direct into high-end audio. If they do want to become a legitimate force in quality watch movements, a similar transition is probably going to have to take place.

[KBH 7]

Swatch Group Under Antitrust Investigation </h3> Big news regarding the worlds largest watch manufacturer, The Swatch Group, came out today unfortunately it's not really of the positive nature for them. It was announced that they were being investigated by a Swiss antitrust body for possible abuse of its dominant market position. Those in the know were well aware of The Swatch Groups plan, announced in 2004, to stop selling blank movements to outside watch companies. This sent something of a shock wave through an industry that heavily relied on their ETA brand of mechanical movements. Swatch Group co-founder Nicolas Hayek [pictured] claimed that he felt as though the industry needed to be shaken up, and that he wanted to spur more innovation. At that time they were investigated by the same antitrust body where a deal was struck that ETA would continue to provide blank movements through 2010 to give time for the Swiss watch industry to plan and adjust to the change. Since that announcement from The Swatch Group and with 2010 looming several higher end manufacturers that traditionally relied on ETA to supply blank movements did begin creating their own in-house movements.

 

Full text of article from Reuters:

ZURICH, Sept 15 (Reuters) - The Swiss competition watchdog has launched an investigation against Swatch Group (UHR.VX) unit ETA Manufacture Horlogere Suisse SA for potential abuse of a dominant market position.

 

A pre-investigation yielded signs ETA had abused its potentially dominant position in the market for mechanical clockworks, the Competition Commission said on Tuesday.

 

Swatch Group, the world's largest watchmaker and best known for colourful plastic Swatch watches, said it was confident the results of the investigation would be positive.

 

"The timing for such an investigation is rather bad as since the beginning of 2009 most of the third-party clients have massively cancelled or postponed their orders," a spokeswoman for the group said in a statement.

 

Third-party watchmakers have cut back on orders for components from Swatch Group as the Swiss watch industry grapples with its sharpest drop in demand in around 20 years as a result of the economic slump.

 

The commission was mainly investigating whether ETA sold products at better conditions than other Swatch Group companies than to third-party firms, Patrik Ducrey from the commission said. The investigation was set to take about one year.

 

At 0754 GMT, shares in Swatch Group had slipped 0.7 percent to 236.80 Swiss francs, while the DJ personal and household goods index was flat..SXQP

 

The commission said it had received a number of complaints after ETA raised prices and announced new payment conditions last year.

 

ETA had already been investigated in 2004 after announcing it would stop delivery of clockwork kits -- so called Ebauches -- where it had market share of over 95 percent in the relevant market. The case was settled after ETA agreed to continue supplying Ebauches until the end of 2010. (Reporting by Sven Egenter; Editing by Dan Lalor)

 

 

-----------------------------------------

Swatch Group, behind such brands as Omega, Breguet and Blancpain, has already struck a deal with the Competition Commission to stop supplying other watchmakers with kits to make watch movements from the beginning of 2011.

 

"This example of the kits could set a precedent. The question now is to find out how much time Swatch Group would give to third parties to adapt," said Ducrey of the competition watchdog. "One cannot force ETA to deliver components to the rest of the industry forever."

 

 

------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

Still not sure this has anything to do with complete movements, though.

[KBH 7]

Borrowed from Timetechtalk. Full credit to oagaspar, admin. Further information pointing out that movements will probably still be available for quite some time:

 

 

Swatch Group has planned this to begin in 2010 for some time involving their base plates which is essential to any watchmaker who has been using them as the basis of their movements but it doesn't mean they aren't selling complete movements or parts to principle owners/watchmakers....1st look up 3rd party so you know what it means and then look at Swatch and what they are really trying to do which is keep the high integrity of their ETA movement line intact which has been tarnished by those who were buying Ebauches and parts and building the Asian etas that have flooded the marketplace and are maninly used by 3rd party watchmakers like the so called eta 2836-2 modified GMT.

 

I have already been reading on other forums with some WIS trying to twist this press release to their limited knowledge and make statememnts that are just not true....1st of all Sellita can not make enough movements to fill any gap as proven over the past 2 years...this year they pretty much vanished due to not being able to get needed parts within the Swiss confines and there is plenty discussion about Sellita here on 3T...they are already advertising 95% Swiss Made and Miyota is faced with worker turmoil where they did not have presence of mind to train young men and women in the art of movement making and the entire workforce is much older and ready to retire... now the younger generation in Asia will not work for what their ancestors would and workers are at a demand by Miyota just like Swatch faced over the past few years.

 

Swatch Group is a well run machine and Nicolas Hayek is known as the saviour of Swiss Watchmaking ...he will not jeapordize the entire industry of Swiss watchmaking which he saved nor his reputation.You must also read closely as Hayek has only said this to a paper and has not brought it up to the Swiss Federation...whom may vote no as they did when Hayek asked to keep eta within the Swatch Group.So we are looking at nothing but words reported by a newspaper right now and bottom line is we will benefit from ETA not selling parts to 3rd party watchmakers which will still be able to buy complete movements from what I understand as we will be assured our watches using eta movements will be 100% Swiss ETA and not Swiss Cheese!... like Jeff said above these discussions surrounding ETA began around 1999-2000 so here we are 9/10 years later and notta....the gears of time move slowly.

[Member X 91]

All good info, thanks for the postings