 | |
| Company type | Private company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Watch manufacturing |
| Founded | 1886 (by Arnold Amstutz and Constant Droz) |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | Jérôme Monnat Jr. (CEO) |
| Products | Automatic and quartz wristwatches |
| Website | www |
West End Watch Company is a manufacturer of watches located at Leytron (Switzerland). It was established in 1886 and has been in business for more than 120 years.
The company has produced and distributed more than 15 million watches worldwide since 1886.
The West End Watch Company was created in 1886. The West End, a district of the centre of London, inspired its name to M. Arnold Charpié who was the Bombay representative of the Alcide Droz & Sons firm, a watch company established at Saint-Imier (Canton of Bern) in Switzerland.
In 1886, MM. Amstutz and Droz, the owner of Alcide Droz & Sons firm, began the exploitation of the trademark West End Watch Company in the Indian market and developed the first waterproof pocket watch ever produced: [1] "L'Impermeable" (nowadays displayed at the International Watchmaking Museum of La Chaux-de-Fonds).
During the First World War, a large force of British and Indian soldiers was sent from Bombay to the Persian Gulf to reach Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). They received some West End Watch Company watches.
In 1917, the West End Watch Company changed its name to Société des Montres West End SA and was registered in Geneva. At the same time the sub-brand Sowar was also registered.
In 1934, the Société des Montres West End SA was the first brand to introduce the Incabloc anti-shock system invented by Mr. Braunschweig. [2]
In 1973, after several years of development, the company was finally sold, for lack of heirs, to its main supplier, Aubry Brothers Ltd, established in Noirmont (Jura) to keep open the Bombay West End Watch Company's office.
Since 2000 the workshops and the head office of the company have been moved to Leytron, in Wallis. At the same time, the company was taken over by new shareholders and the management changed.
In 2005, the West End Watch Company celebrated its 120th anniversary of uninterrupted presence in Asia with the introduction of its "Silk Road concept". This concept came from the fact that the Silk Road crossed most of the regions where the brand possessed, and still possesses, counters.
Nowadays, West End Watch Company is active in Saudi Arabia, in the United Arab Emirates, in the Himalaya Range (in particular in Tibet, Nepal and in Bhutan), as well as in the western half of China.
In 2011, West End Watch Company celebrated 125 years of uninterrupted activity, so a commemorative book redrawing the history of the brand was published in 2010 in association with the Centre Jurassien d’Archives et de Recherches Economiques. [3]
At the beginning of the 20th century West End Watch Company launched a model called the Sowar -the cavalryman- named after one of the elite troops of the Indian army. This name was selected in honour of Sir Thomas Edward Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) because it is said that he and his soldiers wore West End Watch Company watches during the war. The Sowar model is still manufactured today.
The Swatch Group Ltd is a Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewellery. The company was founded in 1983 through the merger of ASUAG and SSIH, moving to manufacturing quartz-crystal watches to resolve the quartz crisis threatening the traditional Swiss watchmaking industry.
TissotSA 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.
Piaget SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker and jeweller. Founded in 1874 by Georges Piaget in the village of La Côte-aux-Fées, Piaget is currently a subsidiary of the Swiss Richemont group.
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Compagnie des Montres Longines, Francillon S.A., or simply Longines, is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. Founded by Auguste Agassiz in 1832, the company has been a subsidiary of the Swiss Swatch Group and its predecessors since 1983. Its winged hourglass logo, registered in 1889, is the oldest unchanged active trademark registered with WIPO.
Franck Muller is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer named after its founder. The company's estimated total sales were €290 million in watches with an average unit price of €38,000. Franck Muller's watches are worn by various celebrities, among them Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elton John, Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham, Kanye West, Conor McGregor, Floyd Mayweather, Paris Hilton, and Chris Brown.
Glycine Watch SA, or simply Glycine, is a Swiss watchmaker founded in 1914 in Biel/Bienne (BE), Switzerland, where its manufacturing and headquarters remain today. In 1930, Glycine released the first mass-produced automatic watches, and in 1959, it developed vacuum-sealed cases, allowing for more durable and water-resistant timepieces. The Glycine Airman, the first watch capable of tracking two 24-hour time zones, has been used extensively in commercial and military aviation, as well as in spaceflights; notable examples include its use by United States Air Force pilots during the Vietnam War and astronaut Pete Conrad during the Gemini 5 and Gemini 11 spaceflights.
The Geneva Seal (English), Poinçon de Genève (French), or Genfer Siegel (German) is the official seal of the City and Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. When a variation of the official seal is applied to wristwatch movements, the Geneva Seal is the quality seal of the Watchmaking School of Geneva and it has an official purpose as defined by the law.
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.
Greubel Forsey is a Swiss watchmaking company specializing in complicated, high-end timepieces. It was launched in 2004 by Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey and is based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.
Léon Louis Gallet (1832–1899), watchmaker, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and past family patriarch of the Gallet Watch Company of Switzerland, is considered as one of the primary architects and founders of the 19th century industrialization of the Swiss watchmaking industry.
Leijona is a Finnish watch brand owned by the company Oy Perkko. History of the brand dates back to 1907 when Johan Werner Lindroos started importing watches into Finland. The brand has been owned by the Perkko family since 1919. The watches were originally manufactured in Switzerland, and later mostly in Japan and China. In recent years, the brand has reintroduced Swiss made watches as a part of its collections, most notably the high-end Leijona Heritage 1907 collection developed together with watchmaker Kari Voutilainen.
L'impermeable is the name of the first waterproof watch invented at the end of the 19th century and manufactured by the West End Watch Company, one of the oldest Swiss brands still active.
Mathey-Tissot is a Swiss watch maker of prestige watches, originally established in 1886 by Edmond Mathey-Tissot at Les Ponts-de-Martel in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
Y. Arpa is a Swiss watch designer. He started his career as a mathematics professor who, after participating in professional martial art combats in Thailand and crossing Papua New Guinea by foot, came back to his roots in Switzerland.
Solvil et Titus is a formerly Swiss, now Hong-Kong watch company and brand, founded in 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Neuchâtel, Switzerland by Paul Ditisheim and developed by Paul Bernard Vogel.
Paul Bernard Vogel was a Swiss industrialist who owned the Solvil et Titus watch manufacture.
Richard Mille is a Swiss luxury watch company founded in 2001 by Dominique Guenat and Richard Mille, based in Les Breuleux, Switzerland. The brand specialises in high-priced clockwork watches.
Dominique Loiseau was a French and Swiss watchmaker who worked at the highest levels of complex horology from the mid 1970s onwards He was the creator of several notable timepieces, including six Montres de Sables, the Rose de Temps clock, the Renaissance or Capriccio pocket watches and the Blancpain 1735 wristwatch. In 2011 he presented, the Loiseau 1f4, one of the most complicated automatic watches with eight patents. Loiseau announced in 2012 a collaboration with Swiss watch manufacturer Girard-Perregaux.
Montres Tudor SA, or simply Tudor, is a Swiss watchmaker based in Geneva, Switzerland. Registered in 1926 by Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex, the brand remains a sister company to Rolex; both companies are owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. Tudor was initially known for watches produced for the military and professional divers. From the 1960s to 1980s, several navies issued Tudor Submariners to their divers, including the US Navy SEALs and the French Marine Nationale.
