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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.
My $30 Timex tells me the time just fine.
While the idea of a "wrist communicator" sounds almost as cool as a Star Trek chest badge, I just can't see spending hundreds of dollars on such a thing when I don't even own a "smart phone" because I rarely leave the house. Quite frankly, I don't see the point of devices that have to be tethered to a smart phone, because that means you still have a pocket full of phone to bend or break.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
That's okay, traditional watch makers can just switch to making mechanical smart-phones, a wide open niche.
Table-ized A.I.
Watches such as the Swiss make are luxury items and are the one item of "jewelry"
a man can wear without controversy in any social circles. Also, a high-end Swiss
watch is a means of identifying yourself in a particular group, for example a Breitling
Navitimer probably means you are a professional pilot or at least you want people
to think you are. An Apple watch will never ever replace a Breitling in this market.
The Apple watch presents no threat to such Swiss watches, any more than a Tesla
car presents a threat to Porsche.
Me, I think the Apple watch is interesting but it is ten times more expensive than it should be
and is not waterproof, and these two facts mean I will never ever own one.
I can't imagine the differences in any Swatch watches from the past 15 years is anything but external. I imagine they're mostly a watch face theme company, if not, then engineering was failing. But, external design isn't going to go completely away, unless they make ugly rectangles with ugly bands like all of the current smart watches (besides the Motorola 360). These first gen smart watches *can't* be as good as it gets. Put micro batteries in the bands and blow everyone away in terms of thickness. Add functionality to the bands (would love control on the band (swipe or whatever) in addition screen since my finger isn't transparent). I'd prefer a much smaller screen than what's available.
This guy is thinking Apple can't miss - but they often have in their history. My guess is that this will be an AppleTV moment, somewhat successful, but nothing like their other products.
These poor guys in Switzerland all worried their industry is going to go under need to take a deep breath - these are smartwatches that will become obsolete in a few years...Apple will sell some of these, but until they can replace the phone itself (that time will come) the compelling justification for them (expensive short lifed smartwatches) just isn't there., IMHO...saying that as someone who likes Apples products.
If that were true, Timex would have destroyed the Swiss watch industry. Yet Patek, AP et al are doing fine. That market isn't about telling time but making a statement. A Patek says I appreciate a finely crafted timeless design and don't need to blast "look at me" by wearing a Rolex. It's not copied by every mass market brand yet those who appreciate a fine watch knows what it is; and is a watch that you will pass down from generation to generation. In addition, people who buy numerous watches will continue to do so because they like the design and want to have a choice of waht they want in their wrist. Formal dinner? Time for the gold Cellini. Day a the beach? Seamaster. Building a fence or stone wall? The Timex that will survive the scrapes and doesn't cost $500 to replace a crystal. Apple will do fine but so will the Swiss. An Apple watch will simply be one more to add to the collection Now, if I was Motorola or Samsung? Yea, I'd be worried.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
For info I am interested i watches, with a little collection including several vintages. Nothing truly expensive, most even cheap, I do simply like the mechanical engineering.
This being said, the Swiss watch industry has been carefully marketing its expensive mechanical watches, creating that impression of refined heirloom engineering and jewelry, while by and large you pay simply for marketing and big profits. Very little real innovation happens in the world of mechanical watches. There is the coaxial escapement from Daniels, but what else was recently introduced? The price of luxury watches goes mainly to profit, marketing (posters with Daniel Craig everywhere), boutique costs. In a way you don't get more real engineering quality in many swiss watches than in a gold apple watch.
Then comes Apple. As a watch enthusiast, while I am not yet conviced about the current utility of a smartwatch, I was immediately impressed by the attention to materials and the straps & bracelets. Barely any innovation happened in that respect in the traditional watches. Look how the lugs are easily exchanged and are ideally adapted to each strap. There is the refined bracelet that you can resize without tools. The magnetically closing milano mesh (admittedly this would not work with a mechanical watch), the way the sports band folds under (this was first done by designer Newsom in his rare Ikepod watches, no coincidence that he is on the Apple design team now). I like how Apple did not simply add a strap to a watch but truly thought it over from scratch.
Then there is the marketing, where health will become even more a cornerstone in future iterations, since they have hired people specialised in medial sensors. Everyone wants to be healthy, I think this will be the "killer app" going forward. And even in v1, there are several millions of happy iphone users who will be curious to try it, I think that it is indeed not a stretch to imagine it selling a few million pieces by EOY, with real ramp up coming from v2 onwards.
I think that the apple watch and the more refined android smartwaches will start to bring havoc to the sub $1000 segment of traditional watches from this year onwards. Luxury mechanicals will still sell, but the perception of the public about their worth may well change, I am not sure that the traditional Swiss marketing "you're looking after it until you pass it on" will have staying power.
He's right. Smartwatches are going to hit the luxury watch market hard over the long term.
I was a fan of good (but affordable, like Orient) automatic watches always kept my eyes open for deals on interesting ones. At least, until I received an LG G watch (Android smartwatch).
It unlocks my phone just by being near.. Tells me who is calling. Let's me reply quickly to text messages and emails. Accepts voice commands like "Set a reminder for 7 pm to take out the trash" or "How many people live in London". Allows me to change watch faces depending on the situation (e.g. something classier for date night). My default watch face shows me the weather radar, hourly temperature and hourly rain forecast throughout the day. Tracks my activity. And I think it looks decent enough too.
I keep noticing deals on new watches, but they hold no interest. Why spend money on a watch that doesn't do what I'm now used to?
Eventually, luxury watches will be a sign of shallowness and stupidity. Let's say you meet three folks at a conference. One pulls out their iPhone 6, one pulls out their Nexus 6, and one pulls out their Vertu. Who are you going to take seriously? The two folks who have a fashionable and practical phone? Or the idiot who spent $20,000 on a barely functional behind-the-time tool instead of a modern functional one just because it was covered in diamonds.
It may take a decade or two, but eventually a luxury watch will get the same reaction. Maybe not from every last person, but from enough to impact sales.
You can only assume that each watch gets plugged into an NSA data transfer/backdoor update terminal each service. Although, it's silly to think that they need physical access if they want your data. :P
Oh yes! A fool and his money are soon parted. The guy may not even be wrong, but quite frankly if Apple sells so many watches each year all it tells me is that there's an awful lot of suckers on the watch market. Still, I don't think Apple has the same prestige as Swiss watch brands, and perhaps far more importantly your Swiss watch won't become outdated within a year, with all support for it probably ceasing within five at most.
The recent strength of the Swiss Franc isn't helping Swiss watchmakers export more of their products. Granted, currency isn't helping Apple either, but Apple has tremendously more pricing flexibility than the entire Swiss watch industry.
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.
That intimate connection to the skin could be an inductive pick up point for blood monitoring . Watching for spikes in blood chemistry would be great for monitoring cancer remission (calcium levels etc), blood sugar, (insert new IOT thing here). The ANT+ interface spec http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... could hook to a Phone in a flash though. Medical records? Pill handling?
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
I love the idea of a dumb-ish watch or a brilliant watch; But not something in the middle. I have looked at the Apple watch talk and it seems that you will still need your phone yet you will have not a whole lot of battery life.
Right now I want a watch that basically gives me minor tips as to what is going on with my phone. Texts, the time, the date, appointment reminders, and maybe directions from a running GPS route(all coming from my phone). That is about it. I don't need a map, I don't need to schedule appointments, I don't need health crap, I don't need to send texts, I don't need video, I don't need to take pictures, and just about anything else. For those features I have a phone that is really good.
This way my watch can be thin, simple, and have a great battery life.
Eventually (when the tech is ready)I want my watch to be my phone so that in theory I can wear it alone and be able to do a scaled down version of most of what I do on my phone now. Then I want to carry a screen thing that talks to my watch to access its features. But I only want this when the battery life is at least as good as my phone is now.
So if the Swiss are smart they will go for simplicity and elegance as a substitute for the gold plated pickup truck that apple plans on selling.
That said, Apple is going to sell a bazillion of these things and make piles of money; which is a good thing for a company. I just hope that they eventually go for simplicity or that someone else does; which will be a good thing for me; and maybe the Swiss.
How can you tell someone owns a Mac?
Oh, don't worry. They'll tell *you*.
I don't see the Apple watch as being much of a threat. A good Swiss watch will work just as well five years later as it did new. It won't go obsolete and it won't need charging after five hours of use.
Within three years the iWatch will probably need a new battery, which probably will not be easily replacable. It will quickly grow obsolete as watches with better battery life and better features come out.
And we all know that you never buy an Apple 1.0 product.
Besides, people would look silly if they treated their watches like a Dick Tracy watch or had to hold their wrist up to their ear to hear Siri.
I wear a watch that is a far better watch than the iWatch. I never have to charge it (solar) and the only time I need to set it is to change the time zone or daylight savings since it sets itself. If it breaks or I lose it I'm not out several hundred dollars and it will last me years. I tend to be hard on watches too. It does a supurb job telling me the time and date. It's water proof and I never have to take it off. I also don't get distracted by it. It doesn't beep or flash messages at me, talk to me or anything else. I don't have to update the firmware or worry about security issues. If I want to pay by phone it takes me 2 seconds to remove my phone from my belt pouch to pay for something. I don't have to turn my wrist into contortions for NFC or for something to read the screen.
Years ago I used to have watches that had features like a calculator or that could store a phone book and other stuff. With a phone I no longer need these features which were awkward to use at best due to the small size of the watch.
If I'm going to make a phone call I'll hold my phone. It will be a lot easier to hear and will be clearer for the person at the other end. If I'm on the phone a lot I'll get a bluetooth headset.
There are a lot of smart watches out there and none of them seem to be taking the world by storm. The iWatch is not all that different than many of the other watches out there other than the fact that it's more expensive and made by Apple. In some cases it's obsurdly expensive. $10,000 for a gold iWatch with well under $1000 worth of gold? It's just asking to be stolen like somebody wearing a Rolex. Unlike a Rolex, though, in 5 years time it will be worth far less. It's not something you'll be able to hand down to your children and grandchildren. It won't last 20+ years like a good watch will.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Writing as a Swiss, in my view there are two parts to the Swiss watch market. Apple doesn't threaten either one of them.
First, we have the market where Swatch succeeded: the inexpensive fashion accessory. $30 bucks and you had something cool to wear. Apple's products are a hell of a lot more expensive, so they aren't addressing this market.
Second, we have the really expensive Swiss watches. They are also fashion accessories, but they are almost exclusively mechanical watches. I don't see a digital watch gaining any traction among people who spend thousands and sometimes millions for what is essentially mechanical artwork.
Where Apply may succeed is among young professionals: people far enough along to have some disposable income - past the Swatch age - but not in the market to spend crazy amounts of money for a status symbol. The thing is: people in this market have already stopped wearing watches, because their smart phones show the time. Maybe Apple will get them to wear a fancy bracelet again - and maybe not. Either way, it's pretty irrelevant to the watch manufacturers.
Of course, I never have understood the Apple Koolaid. Slick marketing gets people to buy overpriced products that don't work any better than those of the competition. Why?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
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.
It's nice to check the time on the wrist.
What's even nicer is not structuring your life such that you need to care what time it is all the time. I don't know about yours, but my phone will give me reminders to let me know what time it is, so that I don't have to keep checking it to see if it's time to do something yet.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't see the Swiss watch buying crowd overlapping the iFan crowd really at all here, for rather simple reasons.
First off, those who spend the extra money on a Swiss-made timepiece are not the kind of people who are looking to throw that timepiece in the garbage in 3 years because it is essentially obsolete. At least with a simple well-made timepiece, we can count on it to do the one thing it does rather well through generations.
iFans will replace their watches when the next wave of colors is released in time for Christmas. Or when the next model of the $300 "accessory" you need to run your watch comes out.
It was also stated that less than 30 million Swiss-made timepieces were exported last year. There's a reason that number is not 30 billion. The market is still rather select on those who will spend the extra money on a Swiss-made timepiece. Yes, we all know what they are famous for, and it's not because they come equipped with GPS and solar power as other watches now do.
I have a Mac.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Hmm. That's not why I wear them.
It's nice being taller and they make your legs look great. Although both of those increase your chances of a romantic encounter all of my partners have been rather shorter than me, so really she needs to be in the heels not me.
Apple watch technology has been around for years, if not decades.
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2015/03/the-irevolution-that-wasnt-why-apple-watch-will-be-rare-iflop-more-like-newton-and-lisa-than-iphone-.html
There is one thing missing in this thread. The Swiss Watch industry's main purchasers are men. Men buy the expensive high end, and mostly the mid range as well. Women do not tend to buy expensive watches; they spend on other jewelry instead.
The Apple Watch will be mostly purchased by women and not men. Apple knows this. Look at the modeling of the watch on their site and its almost all women wearing it. They had a women on stage during the announce of it. If its sucessful it will be a female market.
Women shoppers follow fashion and have no problem spending large amounts of money on an expensive status symbol that falls out of style rather rapidly and loses all its value and is replaced. Think expensive purses and shoes here. They do this to display status to each other. This is where apple will sell the watch, if it sells. But it won't hurt the Swiss makers much, if at all. They're really trying to open a new market here, but fashion is fickle, and it may boom for a year or three and then die rapidly, or not take off at all.
I have to assume that yesterday's XKCD was aimed squarely at the iWatch.