
The quartz crisis (Swiss) or quartz revolution (America, Japan and other countries) was the upheaval in the
watchmaking industry caused by the advent of
quartz watches in the 1970s and early 1980s, that largely replaced
mechanical watch
A mechanical watch is a watch that uses a Movement (clockwork), clockwork mechanism to measure the passage of time, as opposed to quartz watches which function using the vibration modes of a piezoelectric quartz tuning fork, or radio clock, radio ...
es around the world.
[Smithsonian: The quartz revolution revitalized the U.S. watch industry.](_blank)
It caused a significant decline of the
Swiss watchmaking industry, which chose to remain focused on traditional mechanical watches, while the majority of the world's watch production shifted to Japanese companies such as
Seiko
, commonly known as Seiko ( , ), is a Japanese maker of watches, clocks, electronic devices, and semiconductors. Founded in 1881 by Kintarō Hattori in Tokyo, Seiko introduced the world's first commercial quartz wristwatch in 1969.
Seiko is ...
,
Citizen
Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state.
Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality ...
and
Casio
is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...
which embraced the new electronic technology.
The quartz crisis took place amid the postwar global
Digital Revolution
The Information Age is a History by period, historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on info ...
(or "Third Industrial Revolution"). The crisis started with the ''
Astron
ASTRON is the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. Its main office is in Dwingeloo in the Dwingelderveld National Park in the province of Drenthe. ASTRON is part of the institutes organization of the Dutch Research Council (NWO).
History
A ...
'', the world's first quartz watch, which was introduced by Seiko in December 1969.
The key advances included replacing the mechanical or electromechanical
movement with a quartz clock movement as well as replacing
analog displays with
digital display
A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form (the latter used for example in tactile electronic displays for blind people). When the input information that is supplied has an electrical signal ...
s such as
LED displays and later
liquid-crystal display
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other Electro-optic modulator, electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liq ...
s (LCDs).
In general, quartz timepieces are much more accurate than mechanical timepieces, in addition to having a generally lower cost and therefore sales price.
History
Before the crisis

During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
,
Swiss neutrality permitted the watch industry to continue making consumer time-keeping apparatus, while the major nations of the world shifted timing apparatus production to timing devices for military ordnance. As a result, the Swiss watch industry enjoyed an effective monopoly. The industry prospered in the absence of any real competition. Thus, prior to the 1970s, the Swiss watch industry had 50% of the world watch market.
In the early 1950s a
joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...
between the
Elgin Watch Company in the United States and Lip of France to produce an
electromechanical watch – one powered by a small battery rather than an unwinding spring – laid the groundwork for the
quartz watch. Although the Lip-Elgin enterprise produced only prototypes, in 1957 the first battery-driven watch was in production, the American-made
Hamilton 500.
In 1954, Swiss engineer Max Hetzel developed an electronic
wristwatch
A watch is a timepiece carried or worn by a person. It is designed to maintain a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is worn around the wrist, attached by a watch strap or another type of ...
that used an electrically charged
tuning fork
A tuning fork is an acoustic resonator in the form of a two-pronged fork with the prongs ( ''tines'') formed from a U-shaped bar of elastic metal (usually steel). It resonates at a specific constant pitch when set vibrating by striking it ag ...
powered by a 1.35 volt battery. The tuning fork
resonated at precisely 360
Hz and it powered the hands of the watch through an electromechanical
gear train
A gear train or gear set is a machine element of a mechanical system formed by mounting two or more gears on a frame such that the teeth of the gears engage.
Gear teeth are designed to ensure the pitch circles of engaging gears roll on each oth ...
. This watch was called the
Accutron and was marketed by
Bulova
Bulova is an American luxury timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 in New York City. Formally the Bulova Watch Company, it makes watches, clocks and accessories.
History Founding
Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J ...
, starting in 1960. Although Bulova did not have the first battery-powered wristwatch, the Accutron was a powerful catalyst, as by that time the Swiss watch-manufacturing industry was a mature industry with a centuries-old
global market and deeply entrenched patterns of manufacturing, marketing, and sales.
Beginning of the revolution
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, both
Seiko
, commonly known as Seiko ( , ), is a Japanese maker of watches, clocks, electronic devices, and semiconductors. Founded in 1881 by Kintarō Hattori in Tokyo, Seiko introduced the world's first commercial quartz wristwatch in 1969.
Seiko is ...
and a consortium of Switzerland's top watch firms, including
Patek Philippe,
Piaget, and
Omega
Omega (, ; uppercase Ω, lowercase ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and last letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numerals, Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value ...
, fiercely competed to develop the first quartz wristwatch.
In 1962, the ''Centre Electronique Horloger (CEH)'', consisting of around 20 Swiss watch manufacturers, was established in
Neuchâtel
Neuchâtel (, ; ; ) is a list of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital (political), capital of the cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Neuchâtel (canton), Neuchâtel on Lake Neuchâtel ...
to develop a Swiss-made quartz wristwatch, while simultaneously in Japan, Seiko was also working on an electric watch and developing quartz technology.
[Markets in Time: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Swiss Watchmaking](_blank)
One of the first successes was a portable quartz clock called the ''Seiko Crystal Chronometer QC-951''. This portable clock was used as a backup timer for marathon events in the
1964 Summer Olympics
The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 10 to 24 October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subseq ...
in Tokyo.
In 1966, prototypes of the world's first quartz
pocket watch were unveiled by Seiko and
Longines
Compagnie des Montres Longines, Francillon S.A., or simply Longines (), is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. Founded by Agassiz family, Auguste Agassiz in 1832, the company has been a subsidiary of the Swiss The Swatch G ...
in the
Neuchâtel Observatory's 1966 competition.
In 1967, both the CEH and Seiko presented prototypes of quartz wristwatches to the Neuchâtel Observatory competition.
On 25 December 1969, Seiko unveiled the
''Astron'', the world's first quartz watch, which marked the beginning of the quartz revolution.
The first Swiss quartz analog watch – the
Ebauches SA Beta 21 – arrived at the 1970
Basel Fair.
[Frei, Armin H.]
"First-Hand:The First Quartz Wrist Watch"
, ''IEEE
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines.
The IEEE ...
'' Global History Network, 2009. The Beta 21 was released by numerous manufacturers including the
Omega Electroquartz. On 6 May 1970, Hamilton introduced the
Pulsar
A pulsar (''pulsating star, on the model of quasar'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its Poles of astronomical bodies#Magnetic poles, magnetic poles. This radiation can be obse ...
– the world's first electronic digital watch.
In 1971
Girard-Perregaux introduced the Caliber 350, with an advertised accuracy within about 0.164 seconds per day, which had a quartz oscillator with a frequency of 32,768 Hz, which was faster than previous quartz watch movements and has since become the oscillation frequency used by most quartz clocks. Seiko made key patents publicly available to facilitate the widespread adoption of quartz technology, establishing it as the industry standard.
The rise of quartz
In 1974 Omega introduced the
Omega Marine Chronometer, the first quartz watch ever to be certified as a marine chronometer, accurate to 12 seconds per year using a quartz circuit that produces 2,400,000 vibrations per second. In 1976 Omega introduced the
Omega Chrono-Quartz, the world's first analogue-digital chronograph, which was succeeded within 12 months by the Calibre 1620, the company's first completely
LCD
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...
chronograph wristwatch.
Despite these dramatic advancements, the Swiss hesitated to embrace quartz watches. At the time, Swiss mechanical watches dominated world markets. In addition, excellence in watchmaking was a large component of Swiss
national identity
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language".
National identity ...
. From their position of market strength, and with a national watch industry organized broadly and deeply to foster mechanical watches, many in Switzerland thought that moving into electronic watches was unnecessary. Others outside Switzerland, however, saw the advantage and further developed the technology. By 1978, quartz watches overtook mechanical watches in popularity, plunging the Swiss watch industry into crisis while at the same time strengthening both the Japanese and American watch industries. This period of time was marked by a lack of innovation in Switzerland at the same time that the watch-making industries of other nations were taking full advantage of emerging technologies, specifically quartz watch technology, hence the term "quartz crisis".
As a result of the economic turmoil that ensued, many once-profitable and famous Swiss watch houses became insolvent or disappeared. This period of time completely upset the Swiss watch industry both economically and psychologically. During the 1970s and early 1980s, technological upheavals, i.e. the appearance of the quartz technology, and an otherwise difficult economic situation resulted in a reduction in the size of the Swiss watch industry. Between 1970 and 1983, the number of Swiss watchmakers dropped from 1,600 to 600.
Between 1970 and 1988, Swiss watch employment fell from 90,000 to 28,000.
Outside Switzerland, the crisis is often referred to as the "quartz revolution", particularly in the United States where many American companies had gone out of business or had been bought out by foreign interests by the 1960s. When the first quartz watches were introduced in 1969, the United States promptly took a technological lead in part due to
microelectronics
Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre ...
research for military and space programs. American companies like
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...
,
Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument by the " traitorous eight" who defected from Shockley Semi ...
, and
National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor Corporation was an United States of America, American Semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturer, which specialized in analogue electronics, analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, ...
started the mass production of digital quartz watches and made them affordable.
It did not remain so forever; by 1978
Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
exported the largest number of electronic watches worldwide, and US semiconductor companies came to pull out of the watch market entirely. With the exception of
Timex and
Bulova
Bulova is an American luxury timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 in New York City. Formally the Bulova Watch Company, it makes watches, clocks and accessories.
History Founding
Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J ...
, the remaining traditional American watch companies, including Hamilton, went out of business and sold their brand names to foreign competitors; Bulova would ultimately sell to the Japanese-owned Citizen in 2008.
Aftermath
The Swatch Group
By 1983, the crisis reached a critical point. The Swiss watch industry, which had 1,600 watchmakers in 1970, had declined to 600.
[Swiss News, April, 2005 by Elizabeth Meen](_blank)
/ref> In March 1983, the two biggest Swiss watch groups, ASUAG ( Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie AG) and SSIH (Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère
Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère (SSIH) is a former group of Swiss watchmakers comprising the brands Omega, Tissot and Lemania.
History
SSIH was created on February 24, 1930 in Geneva by Tissot and Omega, to be joined in 1932 by Lema ...
), merged to form ASUAG/SSIH in order to save the industry. This organization was renamed SMH (Société de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie
Société de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie was the name of the holding company created by the merger enforced by the Swiss Banks in 1983 of the SSIH and ASUAG, renamed The Swatch Group in 1998.
Ernst Thomke, previously CEO of Ebauches SA and ...
) in 1986, and then The Swatch Group
The Swatch Group Ltd is a Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewellery. The company was founded in 1983 through the merger of Allgemeine Gesellschaft der Schweizerischen Uhrenindustrie, ASUAG and Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère, SSIH ...
in 1998. It would be instrumental in reviving the Swiss watch industry; today, the Swatch Group is the largest watch manufacturer in the world.
The Swatch product was sealed in a plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding ...
case, sold as a disposable commodity with little probability of repair, and had fewer moving parts (51) than mechanical watches (about 91). Furthermore, production was essentially automated, which resulted in higher profitability. The Swatch was a huge success; in less than two years, more than 2.5 million Swatches were sold. Besides its own product line Swatch, the Swatch Group also acquired other watch brands including Blancpain, Breguet, Glashütte Original, Harry Winston, Longines
Compagnie des Montres Longines, Francillon S.A., or simply Longines (), is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. Founded by Agassiz family, Auguste Agassiz in 1832, the company has been a subsidiary of the Swiss The Swatch G ...
, Omega
Omega (, ; uppercase Ω, lowercase ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and last letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numerals, Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value ...
, Hamilton
Hamilton may refer to:
* Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States
* ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda
** ''Hamilton'' (al ...
and Tissot
Tissot SA () is a Swiss luxury watch brand owned by the Swatch Group. The company was founded in Le Locle, Switzerland by Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son, Charles-Émile Tissot, in 1853.
Tissot is not associated with Mathey-Tissot, anoth ...
.
Renaissance of mechanical watches
The larger global market still largely reflected other trends, however. In the US domestic market
A domestic market, also referred to as an internal market or domestic trading, is the supply and demand of goods, services, and securities within a single country. In domestic trading, a firm faces only one set of competitive, economic, and marke ...
, for example, the Swatch was something of a 1980s fad resting largely on variety of colors and patterns, and the bulk of production still came from offshore sites such as China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
and Japan, in digitally-dominated or hybrid brands like Casio
is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...
, Timex, and Armitron.
On the other hand, the quartz revolution drove many Swiss manufacturers to seek refuge in (or be winnowed out to) the higher end of the market, such as Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, and Rolex
Rolex () is a Swiss watch brand and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by German businessman Hans Wilsdorf and his eventual brother-in-law Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex ...
. Mechanical watches have gradually become luxury goods
In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good (economics), good for which demand (economics), demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a more significant proportion of ove ...
appreciated for their elaborate craftsmanship, aesthetic appeal, and glamorous design, sometimes associated with the social status
Social status is the relative level of social value a person is considered to possess. Such social value includes respect, honour, honor, assumed competence, and deference. On one hand, social scientists view status as a "reward" for group members ...
of their owners, rather than simple timekeeping devices.
The rise of smartwatches
Since the 2010s, smartwatch
A smartwatch is a portable wearable computer that resembles a wristwatch. Most modern smartwatches are operated via a touchscreen, and rely on mobile apps that run on a connected device (such as a smartphone) in order to provide core functions. ...
es have begun to significantly increase their shares in the global watch market, especially after the launch of the Apple Watch
The Apple Watch is a brand of smartwatch products developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple. It incorporates activity tracker, fitness tracking, Health (Apple), health-oriented capabilities, and wireless telecommunication, and integrates wit ...
in 2015. There are concerns over the formation of a new type of crisis which may further threaten the Swiss watchmaking industry.
See also
* List of watch manufacturers
* Smartwatch
A smartwatch is a portable wearable computer that resembles a wristwatch. Most modern smartwatches are operated via a touchscreen, and rely on mobile apps that run on a connected device (such as a smartphone) in order to provide core functions. ...
References
External links
Le Rouage dégrippé, Les crises horlogères, une fatalité en voie de disparition?
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930212142/http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=511&sid=1363989 , date=2007-09-30
Watches
Horology
Economic history of Switzerland
Business rivalries
1970s in Switzerland
1970s in economic history