Slashdot Mirror
Swatch Co-Inventor Predicts Apple Will Bring an 'Ice Age' To Swiss Watch Market
MojoKid writes It seems that these days everything Apple touches turns to gold, hence why the company was able to post an $18 billion profit for its fiscal first quarter of 2015. Be that as it may, can Apple popularize the smartwatch market as others have been unable to do so far? Not only is that the expectation, but according to Swatch watch co-inventor Elmar Mock, Apple is going to bring about an "Ice Age" to the Swiss watch market. Elmar noted that he expects the Apple Watch to quickly reach sales of 20 million to 30 million units per year. For the sake of comparison, Switzerland exported 28.6 million watches in 2014, none of them with smart capabilities. "Apple will succeed quickly. It will put a lot of pressure on the traditional watch industry and jobs in Switzerland...I do expect an Ice Age coming toward us," Elmar said. Analysts for Barclays noted to investors that the Apple Watch launch could result in a 6 percent annual decline in Swatch Group AG's revenue. To keep up with the times and fend off Apple, there are at least three Swiss watch companies planning to make smartwatches, including Swatch Group, which will unveil a smart model sometime this year.
Additionally, a Breitling Emergency has a longer battery life than an iWatch while transmitting an emergency signal to space
Excellent point. I had never heard of such a watch or technology before, and searched for it. Here's a link: http://www.breitling.com/en/em...
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Swatch now owns many Swiss watch manufacturers. The whole premise behind the original Swatch was to make cheap "second-watches" for people to wear and destroy without affecting their nicer ones. In many regards the brand of swatch was nothing more than colourful face-plates, but Swatch the company makes all sorts of watches with different mechanical designs and complications like tourbillions, self winding mechanisms, calendars, chronographs, etc.
The Apple watch presents no threat to such Swiss watches, any more than a Tesla
car presents a threat to Porsche.
Heh, so you don't understand at all how much of a threat Tesla can be to Porsche then, eh? The roadster has some serious clout. Performance wise, ignoring battery life, its a serious contender worthy of debating. Luxury feel? It beats Porsche.
I say this as a Porsche fan who isn't particularly a fan of electric cars. If they get batteries down to 5 minute charge cycles so I can charge in roughly the same time as a fill up, Tesla will probably sell me my next car.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
the majority of Swiss GDP is bank fees on off shore accounts
Nice stereotype you have there, but it doesn't have a lot to do with reality.
The Swiss financial sector in total is around 11% of our GDP; of that, banks are a bit more than half. Take out domestic banking services, and offshore banking is well under 5% of our GDP. Pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical devices are far more important, as are other industry sectors.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Also, as a diver I have a dedicated dive computer. (A Shearwater Petrel) My daily-wear watch is a Movado. I happen to like the minimalist look and the thin profile.
I haven't seen a diver using a "dive watch" in ... ever. My backup timepiece is a Timex Ironman my dad got me when I was a teenager.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.