Path to being the next century-old watch company?

I’m starting to think Bremont is on its way.

I don’t even know the brand. Haha

This is going to sound a little off topic, but I think a consideration for making a watch compant last really has to do with succession and professional management. If I start a brand, but it's just me designing and marketing the watches, at some point I'm going to retire or kick the bucket. Once I stop, that would be it for the brand. It needs to have a decent enough recurring sales base to justify professional management and a succession plan (looking at you, Kickstarter brands) beyond "I like watches, so I designed one."

I'm going to say something that might blow a few minds.... Not every brand wants to be Rolex, no matter how much influencers keep saying it. Not every brand wants to be a luxury brand, some are happy to sell lots of watches to everyday people.

Timex uses third party movements, and has been around a fair bit longer than Rolex.

Developing a movement is expensive, and unless you're in the luxury end of the market, it's rather pointless. Companies that specialize in movements will sell them to brands, so the brands can focus on making the rest of the watch as good as possible for the price they sell at.

Christopher Ward seems pretty established by now and they do innovate. Maybe one of the future giants?

You do realise that many modern brands are technically not as old as they say they are… in that the Quartz Crisis saw a major reshuffle and names traded like Pokémon cards. The name may be centuries old, the current commercial structure only might be 40-50 years old at most.

Nomos

I was going to mention CW. They aren’t very old, but they seem to be moving into more “serious” territory.

That said, as another poster pointed out, it takes generations of good management to get to 100 years. All it takes is one CEO who doesn’t change with the times or changes too much and you can go under. Then the only hope is that your back catalogue is interesting enough for somebody to buy the name and resurrect it. In business terms, 100 years is a crazy long time. Especially starting now when things are changing so rapidly. I think your chances were much better if you started in the 1800s.

Very good perspective. Didn’t know Timex was around so long

I agree that not every brand just wants to have more expensive watches over time.

Pretty sure the path to being the next 100-year-old watch company leads to Pforzheim since Laco turns 100 in 2025.

Luck is how companies survive.

The date of the founding is just advertising. Blancpain went dark for decades. Laco was bought by Timex, then Ebauches S.A., and then Kienzle. Under Ebauches S.A. they ceased watch production. The name was bought by employees during Kienzle's bankruptcy. They are really a fairly new brand in their current form. Tissot has not been independent since 1930. Bulova, Alpina, and Frederique Constant survive because they have niches that Citizen wants to exploit. In the early 80's Omega nearly collapsed and seriously entertained a buyout offer from Seiko. Timex has had multiple bankruptcies.

The market is dynamic and not designed to keep companies alive. Rarely do they outlive their founder in the same corporate form. The industry is dominated by five companies: 3 Swiss, 2 Japanese. Production is disproportionally Chinese. Even microbrands are actually produced by a small number of discrete white label producers.

The exception proves the rule (Rolex).

It depends. For a very long time watch brands used third party or shared movements. In house everything is a rather recent thing. I think the key to survival is doing one thing better, or at least different, than everyone else and making that your signature. If it catches on, then you got a chance...

Which company do you think is doing that?

That’s a lot of history uncovered. Wonder if there’s content online outlying all these. Would be a pretty cool read

With a solid load of personal bias I will say that I think Ming is a good candidate.

A Ming watch is pretty recognisable as a Ming, they had this down from the start. They are also sufficiently premium to have lasting appeal. What I mean by that is they operate over a rather broad range of price points so one does not have to move away from the brand to spend a lot of money. That seems to be a good position to be in.

They remind me a little of Cartier. Every Cartier is clearly recognisable, from the moment they made their first watch until today. With their Collection Privee line they have the premium sector covered as well a bit like Mings special projects. For the longest time Cartier used third party movements. Hell, Ming recently used a movement initially designed for Cartier's Tortue monopusher in their 5th anniversary chronograph. Of course Cartier is much more diversified and did A LOT more than just a bunch of watches but still.

Good chance that I am wrong and I simply like Ming but since you asked 😄

Wow Malaysian designed.

That looks nice.

I wonder how many clients are from Malaysia. That costs like 5 digits in their currency

Spot on, I love how they push the envelope, bel canto was really amazing to see

Quite true, brands like Tudor could also be said to come into its own modern incarnation recently. If such companies which restructured recently can rightly claim their rich heritage that survives through their name is a good topic of discussion