The Swatch Group Ltd is a Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewellery. The company was founded in 1983 by the merger of ASUAG and SSIH to move to manufacturing quartz-crystal watches to resolve the quartz crisis threatening the traditional Swiss watchmaking industry.
TissotSA is a luxury Swiss 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.
Omega SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Founded by Louis Brandt in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1848, the company formerly operated as La Generale Watch Co. until incorporating the name Omega in 1903, becoming Louis Brandt et Frère-Omega Watch & Co. In 1984, the company officially changed its name to Omega SA and opened its museum in Biel/Bienne to the public. Omega is a subsidiary of The Swatch Group.
TAG Heuer S.A. is a Swiss luxury watchmaker. The company began as Uhrenmanufaktur Heuer AG, founded in 1860 by Edouard Heuer in St-Imier, Switzerland. In 1985, TAG Group purchased a majority stake in the company, forming TAG Heuer. In 1999, French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH bought nearly 100 percent of the Swiss company.The name TAG Heuer combines the initials of "Techniques d'Avant Garde" and the founder's surname.
The Contrôle officiel suisse des Chronomètres (COSC), the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute, is the institute responsible for certifying the accuracy and precision of Swiss watches.
ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse designs and manufactures quartz watches and both hand-wound and automatic-winding mechanical ébauches and movements. Commonly referred to as ETA, the company is headquartered in Grenchen, Switzerland, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Swatch Group.
The Hamilton Watch Company is a Swiss manufacturer of wristwatches based in Bienne, Switzerland. Founded in 1892 as an American firm, the Hamilton Watch Company ended American manufacture in 1969. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the Hamilton Watch Company eventually became integrated into the Swatch Group, the world's largest watch manufacturing and marketing conglomerate.
Audemars Piguet Holding SA is a Swiss manufacturer of ultra luxury watches, headquartered in Le Brassus, Switzerland. The company was founded by Jules Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet in the Vallée de Joux in 1875, acquiring the name Audemars Piguet & Cie in 1881. The company has been family-owned since its founding.
Automatic quartz is a collective term describing watch movements that combine a self-winding rotor mechanism to generate electricity with a piezoelectric quartz crystal as its timing element. Such movements aim to provide the advantages of quartz without the inconvenience and environmental impact of batteries. Several manufacturers employ this technique.
Blancpain SA is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer, headquartered in Paudex/Le Brassus, Switzerland. It designs, manufactures, distributes, and sells prestige and luxury mechanical watches. Founded by Jehan-Jacques Blancpain in Villeret, Switzerland in 1735, Blancpain is the oldest registered watch brand in the world. Blancpain has been a subsidiary of the Swiss Swatch Group since 1992, and is regarded as a top-tier watch brand.
Manufacture d'horlogerie is a French language term of horology that has also been adopted in the English language as a loanword. In horology, the term is usually encountered in its abbreviated form manufacture. This term is used when describing a wrist watch movement or watchworks fabricator which makes all or most of the parts required for its products in its own production facilities, as opposed to simply assembling watches using parts purchased from other firms.
Jean Lassale was a Swiss watch company that designed the Calibre 1200, featuring the thinnest mechanical watch movement: 1.2 mm. In the 1970s, Pierre Mathys, master watchmaker in La Chaux-de-Fonds, designed and built the prototype of a revolutionary watch caliber, with the goal of making the thinnest watch in the world. To achieve this feat, Mathys based his design on the work of Robert Annen, who previously had the idea of using ball bearings in small scale horology. Mathys decided to remove the bridges and counter-pivot, and instead use ball bearings for the axis.
Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère (SSIH) is a former group of Swiss watchmakers comprising the brands Omega, Tissot and Lemania.
General Watch Co. (GWC) was the watch companies holding of ASUAG.
Endura S.A. is Swiss watch manufacturer founded in 1966 by General Watch Company (GWC) in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, for the purpose of manufacturing watches under "private label". This company was also part of the merger between ASUAG and SSIH into SMH, now the Swatch Group. Now attached to ETA SA Manufacture horlogère Suisse, Endura SA is the private label and licensing division of the Swatch Group.
Ernst Thomke is a Swiss physician and watchmaker. Training first as a mechanic, he later acquired the Swiss federal maturity degree and pursued academic studies whilst in employment.
Langendorf Watch Company was a Swiss watchmaker known for its fine craftsmanship and great attention to detail. Around 1890, it was probably the largest producer of watches in the world. The company produced watches in Langendorf, Switzerland for exactly a century, from 1873 to 1973.
The Omega Electroquartz was introduced in 1969 as the first production Swiss quartz watch. It was the collaboration of 20 Swiss watch companies and the movement was utilised by Rolex, Patek Phillipe and Omega amongst others. The Beta 21 movement used in the Electroquartz was accurate to 5 seconds per month, far better than any automatic or manual wind movement of the day.
The Omega 28.9 Chronograph was Omega's first small wrist chronograph. Introduced in 1932 as the Lemania caliber CH13, production continued until 1943. Lemania was acquired by the same mother company as Omega, SSIH, in 1932. Watches based on this movement paved the way for Omega to become one of the most successful manufacturers of Swiss made wrist chronographs.
