TAG Heuer plans smartwatch as honcho Jean-Claude Biver changes mind as Apple Watch looms

“TAG Heuer is pushing ahead with plans for a smartwatch to more directly compete with the likes of the Apple Watch and may make acquisitions to help drive the strategy, its head said on Tuesday,” Silke Koltrowitz reports for Reuters. “Swiss watch makers like TAG Heuer, the biggest brand in luxury goods group LVMH’s watch portfolio, had until recently largely dismissed the threat of ‘smart’ gadgets, but LVMH watch chief Jean-Claude Biver says he had changed his mind on the subject.”

Koltrowitz reports, “‘We started on the project about four months ago. We have done several partnerships and might also do acquisitions,’ Biver, head of LVMH watches and TAG Heuer interim chief executive, told journalists at the brand’s headquarters at La Chaux-de-Fonds in western Switzerland.”

MacDailyNews Take: “About four months” or, since we’re talking timekeeping, to be precise: 3 months and 7 days ago.

“Biver said TAG Heuer, which promotes its upmarket sporty image with models such as the Carrera which it describes as inspired by motor racing, would make an announcement once it had a good product to present, or late 2015 at the earliest,” Koltrowitz reports. “‘We’ll only do it if we can be first, different and unique,’ he said.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: We love it when panic sets in.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]

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The fashion elite crowd around Apple Watch at Colette in Paris – September 30, 2014
Jean-Claude Biver: ‘The Apple Watch cannot compete at all with European watches’ – September 15, 2014
Jean-Claude Biver: Apple Watch ‘too feminine; looks like it was designed by a student in their first trimester’ – September 16, 2014
Barclays: Apple Watch could crush companies like Fossil – September 16, 2014
Jean-Claude Biver: ‘The Apple Watch cannot compete at all with European watches’ – September 15, 2014
Old school watch makers don’t get Apple Watch – September 12, 2014
Apple Watch, the world’s first real smartwatch, will be a massive hit – September 9, 2014
Apple iWatch designer Jony Ive: Switzerland is in deep shit – September 4, 2014

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