FROM THE EDITORS Letters + Events
The Reservoir
Hydrosphere. The
brand is one of
many effectively
building specialized
movements based
on utilizing ETA
calibers.
Gary George Girdvainis
Publisher | [email protected]
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
A
round fifteen years ago Nicholas Hayek Sr., (leader of the Swatch Group and ostensible savior of the Swiss watch
industry) began a strategy to control which brands outside their own stable would be endowed with the ability to
purchase Swatch Group mechanical movements.
On one hand you might think that a company should be able to sell to
whom they chose, but on the other, this was potentially monopolistic
behavior that could create winners and losers; and this after the Swatch
Group had consolidated many of the other providers.
It does smack of hypocrisy that after buying up the majority of industrial
suppliers that the company would then purport to actually be helping the
industry by forcing other established brands and fashion houses to go
develop their own movements.
Having pushed the ideology long enough to convince the Swiss
committee on competition (COMCO) to come up with an exit strategy,
Swatch Group was allowed over the course of more than a decade to reduce
movement supplies in stages.
Fast-forward to current times and Nick Hayek Jr. now wants a redo on
that which they had fought so hard to secure – and is vilifying COMCO as
the bad guy for enforcing the hard-fought moratorium.
In part the new desire to continue supplying at will is due to the
slowdown in movement sales, effectively creating a stockpile of excess
4 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | WINTER 2020
inventory at ETA. This was due to the fact that they were forced to make
certain volumes of movements available – whether or not outside brands
would buy them.
So what? A mechanical movement has an indefinite lifespan if properly
stored, and if Swatch Group needs to adjust production to demand, so be it.
You can’t claim to want other companies like Sellita, Soprod, Concepto and
La Joux-Perret to take up the slack, and then suddenly dump tens of
thousands of movements on the market undercutting the others potential
customer base.
How this will shake out in the long run remains to be seen, but the reality
is that the current state of supply was entirely predictable as the ebb and
flow of the watch market will continue to cycle through both prosperous
and challenging times. Now there is a glut of product, so the effect of
adding tens of thousands of inexpensive ETA movements to the fray might
not actually help the perceived value of Swiss Made in the long run.
Keep Watching!