Swatch The World

The watch market is made of numerous companies producing and/or assembling watches. It has been estimated €26 billions in 2010 with a 5% growth since 2009. Needless to say it is very broad one, with products price varying from €10 quartz mass market watches to €10.000.000 exclusive collection masterpieces! It is highly competitive with hundreds of brands, with cheap or fashion or traditional segments. It has a great longevity throughout the years, thanks to the demand that never declined. Brands also have great longevity with examples of Blancpain (1735), Breguet (1775) or Vacheron Constantin (1755).

We can consider two distinct part of the watch industry, which are the mechanical watches and the quartz watches. We usually consider mechanical watches to be of a higher standard. Switzerland is the first watch producer, with other countries such as France, United States or Japan behind. The watch market is also characterised by the high skills it requires producing, especially for mechanical watches, therefore, creating rel high barriers to entry.

Here is a list of some major players in the watch industry:

Name	Date of creation	Nationality
A. Lange & Söhne	1868	Germany
Audemars Piguet	1875	Switzerland
Baume et Mercier	1920	Switzerland
Bell & Ross	1992	France
Breguet	1775	Switzerland
Breitling	1884	Switzerland
Casio	1946	Japan
Festina	1902	Switzerland
Hamiltion	1882	United States
Lip	1867	France
Longines	1832	Switzerland
Omega	1848	Switzerland
Orient	1950	Japan
Rolex	1908	Great Brittain
Seiko	1881	Japan
Swatch	1883	Switzerland
Tissot	1853	Switzerland