“Apple Inc. may soon sell as many timepieces as all of Switzerland, threatening the country’s four-century-old industry, the co-inventor of the Swatch predicted,” Corinne Gretler reports for Bloomberg. “The Apple Watch may reach sales of 20 million to 30 million units annually in the first few years, Elmar Mock said by phone on Tuesday. Switzerland exported 28.6 million watches in 2014. ‘Apple will succeed quickly,’ said the 61-year-old, who helped create the low-price Swatch in the 1980s. ‘It will put a lot of pressure on the traditional watch industry and jobs in Switzerland.'”
“‘Anything in the price range of 500 francs to 1,000 francs is really in danger,’ said Mock, speaking by phone from Biel, Switzerland,” Gretler reports. “‘I do expect an Ice Age coming toward us,'” Gretler reports. “While “’Swiss Made’ has become a gauge of quality, the country’s watch industry isn’t impervious to threats — 60,000 jobs disappeared in the 1970s and 1980s when Swiss watchmakers underestimated demand for more exact battery-powered quartz watches from Japanese producers such as Seiko.”
“The success of the Swatch, a mass-market plastic watch that kept factories running, helped the industry revive,” Gretler reports. “‘Unfortunately, I’m reminded too strongly of the quartz crisis,’ Mock said. ‘So far I see watchmakers in this country making the same mistakes as back then. We’ve seen a lot of arrogance in the Swiss watch industry in the past few years, calling the smartwatch a gadget and not taking it seriously… Apple won’t die if the smartwatch isn’t a success. But in the next two to three years, a part of the Swiss watch market will suffer strongly.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: There’s nothing quite as refreshing as brutal honesty.
Good luck, Switzerland. You’re going to need it. Our advice: Focus on chocolate before Apple gets any Wonka-ish ideas.
Ah, would that Steve were still here:
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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