Swatch may be just a couple of months from launching its own Apple Watch rival, but the 61-year old co-creator of the low cost Swatch wristwatch, Elmar Mock, isn’t being shy about describing the havoc he thinks Apple’s debut wearable device is going to wreak on the watch industry.
“Apple will succeed quickly,” Mock told Bloomberg. “It will put a lot of pressure on the traditional watch industry and jobs in Switzerland.”
Although other brands are now starting to investigate the possibilities of smartwatches, Mock thinks people are still selling the Apple Watch short, saying that the Apple Watch is going to bring about an “Ice Age” for makers of mid-priced Swiss watches when it ships in April.
Mock likens the current Apple Watch response from Swiss watchmaking giants to the reaction to battery-powered quartz watches when they first arrived; resulting in 60,000 jobs disappearing during the 1970s and 80s when Japanese watchmakers like Seiko were written off as short-term gimmicks from companies who didn’t properly understand watchmaking.
“Unfortunately, I’m reminded too strongly of the quartz crisis,” Mock says. “So far I see watchmakers in this country making the same mistakes as back then. We’ve seen a lot of arrogance in the Swiss watch industry in the past few years, calling the smartwatch a gadget and not taking it seriously.”
Mock says it’s not too late for Swiss watchmakers, but that they need to move now in order to stay competitive. “I just hope the top managements of the companies will react accordingly,” he says. “Apple won’t die if the smartwatch isn’t a success. But in the next two to three years, a part of the Swiss watch market will suffer strongly.”
Latest estimates suggest that Apple will ship around 15-20 million Apple Watches in 2015 alone.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
8 responses to “Swatch inventor says winter is coming for Swiss watchmakers”
This might be the scenario but another possibility is they see an influx of buisness from the awareness of how cool timepieces can be. I’m guessing record sales will come from all the non watch buyers jumping on board which would not have affected watchmakers either way
Yeah, Maybe. But I think this Apple Watch will still have a serious impact on there industry. Just imagine all the people that don’t where watches seeing other people do cool things with the Apple Watch. I’m pretty sure they may feel that if there going to get a watch why not get one that will do some of the cool things they see other people doing with there Apple Watch apps. There is a slight chance that it could be BlackBerry- iPhone all over again. Only to a certain degree.
Most Swiss watches are a bit on the expensive side, so the iWatch’s price will not be a barrier to it’s acceptance by those who have or would be attracted to an expensive watch,
In addition, a large percentage if not a majority, of iPhone users (a lot of people) will be attracted to the iWatch.
The watch will be the must have accessory for a long time to come for a lot of people.
“…or a long time…” – NO WAY! Apple stops servicing their deviced 5 years, after they are no longer distributed. So what if my battery fails? No issue for an automatic watch, no issue for a regular quartz… iPhone first generation “the most innovative product, apple has created” is declared as vintage. that means NO SERVICE AT ALL. Fuck off Apple, then I will prefer a cheap dumb casio, wich will still show me the time in 10 years…
And that’s the point. It will do that one thing good. Show the time. That’s all it will ever do, and people may want more than that. Hell, people may end up feeling that seeing the time on there wrist is just as important as seeing notifications on there wrist. Also Apple will be replacing the watch battery.
yesterday i checked the prices of Rolex and Patek Phillipe prices around 5000 Euro and yes they are beautiful. Some of the watches needs battery change at some point in vacuum and will cost 300 euro to change. You pay for quality. Apple watch will not kill them but will kill crappy Swatch, Timex and other brands.
I may be wrong but I feel like there isn’t much overlap between the Apple Watch crowd and the expensive Swiss watch crowd.
There has been talk of “smartwatches” for years. Did conventional watchmakers really sit on their hands and not take note of the lessons they could have learned from Kodak, Palm, Blackberry, USPS and the myriad other companies that couldn’t read the handwriting on the wall?