Hayek, motivated by hatred of a competitor or just a good Swiss?

interesting and I read about this on another site also.

Quote -
--------
"Nicolas Hayek is ready to give up a turnover of 300 to 400 million, 7% to 8% of its sales. He said "tired, annoyed, angry," stressing that "nobody is forced Rolex, for example, to deliver his movements to others."
---------

I wonder how many companies will close in 2010. It is amazing how many brands are currently reliant on the movements they get from the Swatch Group. Since this reliance is so dominating, if he was to go through with his threats and stop supplying the rest of the planet who currently uses their movements - how many watch brands would just disappear without an affordable (in their current price point set up) replacement option.

Maybe I am naive...

But if you had the best CAR engine in the world, would you want to supply it to your competitor car companies?

no of course not and I agree with you 100%

but I do think selling these movements to everyone else became a big (massive) and real revenue center for them. Hard to lose that real revenue once it has been showing up each year for many years in the "plus" income column.

cali kid wrote:

For way too long everyone and their brother has used the base ETA movement and re worked a few things and called it their own!! Think it would piss me off a little! The real manufacturors have been expecting this day and most have a inhouse movement!

I think it is going to be interesting to see the following

1) Which (how many) companies just fold because they can not manufacture their own movement or find another at a similar price point.

2) Which company STARTS mass selling movements like Swatch Group was doing? You know someone will step up eventually and start mass producing movements. Obviously there is money to be made selling these movements and someone WILL gobble up that market share if Swatch Group is going to truly stop their outside sales.

thats is, im going to the store today to stock up on Swiss Watchs, Food, Water, Flare guns and a 50mm machine gun....I ant takin no chances

I think most people underestimate Invicta's buying power right now and currently. I have spoken to several watch company representative and owners who are 100% "in the know" and they say that no other company purchases as many movements at one time and direct from suppliers as Invicta currently does. This does not surprise me as buying power in huge bulk and volume is nothing new in any industry.

What will be interesting to see is how the future changes in the "movement" landscape affects this, if at all.

Maybe Invicta will use their "Factories" to start churning out their own movements.......Oh wait dont they already make their own ebauches? With that scamm Swiss Technica thingy? I am really interested to see what happens when ETA pulls the plug and what 75% of the watch brands then will do......Just nutz,,,,Im seriously stockin up on my must haves now before the apocalypse comes...

ericf4 wrote:

thats is, im going to the store today to stock up on Swiss Watchs, Food, Water, Flare guns and a 50mm machine gun....I ant takin no chances

Hell yeah!!!!!!!!!

I think Swatch feels that people will buy more Omegas and Blancpains (and thier dozen other brands) with ETA's in them, because they like and trust ETA movements. This will make up for any sales loss they get by not supplying movements and parts to other manufacturers. Does having an ETA inside matter?....well it does to me somewhat, it part of that quality feeling you get when the spec lists ETA xxxx for a movement. Are people willing to pay the same $$ for a Miyota or Sellita? Oris has swapped a bunch of thier new watches to the Sellita from ETA. I wonder how they are selling compared to the older styles. Do 90% of the watch buying public even care whats inside?

AlbertaTime wrote:

cali kid wrote:

i dont want to hear it was because the seiko movement is better!!

It doesn't matter whether the Seiko was better or not. TAG has every right to source it's movements (or movement designs) from anywhere it wants, for whatever reasons it wishes--and Swatch has every right to sell its movements (or NOT to sell its movements) to anyone they choose.

Companies that compete with Swatch are free to choose their business models and to survive or fail based on those decisions.

cali kid wrote:

China on the other hand would never even think to check on infringing intellectual property rights before copying something.

Cali kid, just as not all Swiss companies have the same ethical standards, nor identical capabilities in design and manufacturing, Chinese companies differ as well.

It is wrongheaded and unfair (and even respected Swiss notables such as James Elsener will agree with me) to lump all Chinese watch companies together with blanket statements like that. The Japanese used to suffer from the same kind of blanket (poor quality and "fake/copycat") smears, and it's just as wrong (just as racist and xenophobic) when applied to the Chinese.

In any case--even the Swiss note that Chinese manufacturers are only responsible for about 30% of the fakes--and that means the rest, the majority, are coming from somewhere else, and its not like Switzerland hasn't had it's share of fakers either.

Its easy for a lot of people to throw stones when they self rationalize the money they pay for a lot of the Swiss watches. I'm not singling any one person out because this attitude is very wide spread. I think within a generation, China will be where Japan is now in the watch industry. This will further weaken the Swiss watch makers dominance in high end watches. Some Swiss companies will continue to distinguish themselves and command high prices. But many Swiss companies will fall on their own sword and become irrelevant. The advantage of history and heritage belong to the Swiss for now but sheer arrogance will not stand up to increasing global competition. I could be wrong and I'm confident some will tell me so.

merichar wrote:

Its easy for a lot of people to throw stones when they self rationalize the money they pay for a lot of the Swiss watches. I'm not singling any one person out because this attitude is very wide spread. I think within a generation, China will be where Japan is now in the watch industry. This will further weaken the Swiss watch makers dominance in high end watches. Some Swiss companies will continue to distinguish themselves and command high prices. But many Swiss companies will fall on their own sword and become irrelevant. The advantage of history and heritage belong to the Swiss for now but sheer arrogance will not stand up to increasing global competition. I could be wrong and I'm confident some will tell me so.

Agree 100%. Great post and points.

I really don't know all the inner details about this move by ETA
or the Swatch Group. Really I respect them..and know they make
good movements ! However, it would probably be very intriguing
if more watch companies had their own movements. Imagine how
great it would be to have different movements in our watches !
That way, when ever we got a new watch..we would not always be
saying the same movement or company is in it. There would be more to
choose from and maybe these new movements from companies other than
ETA will be excellent. Maybe Sellita could be one of many new companies
to make good Swiss movements. Down the road..it will be interesting to
see if there are more great movements from watch companies. Maybe
even though this sounds bad for the watch industry now..it will actually
help strengthen it as a whole for the future ! Also in the end..maybe the
customer will benefit, by having quality movements to choose from that
just might be less expensive too !

I do believe what someone commented on above. I would estimate that 90-95% of the entire watch buying public (everyone who wears a watch world wide) does not care about what movement is inside or literally anything other then they like the look of the watch they are wearing and that it works. Most people just don't ever think about this and just wear a watch each day to tell time.