Quartz Crisis - The Rise of Quartz in The 1970s

The Rise of Quartz in The 1970s

Despite these dramatic advancements the Swiss hesitated in embracing quartz watches. At the time Swiss mechanical watches dominated world markets. In addition, excellence in watchmaking was a large component of Swiss national identity. From their position of market strength, and with a national watch industry organized broadly and deeply to foster mechanical watches, many in Switzerland thought that moving into electronic watches was unnecessary. Others, outside of Switzerland, however, saw the advantage and further developed the technology, and by 1978 quartz watches overtook mechanical watches in popularity, plunging the Swiss watch industry into crisis while at the same time strengthening both the Japanese and American watch industries. This period of time was marked by a lack of innovation in Switzerland at the same time that the watch making industries of other nations were taking full advantage of emerging technologies, specifically, quartz watch technology, hence the term Quartz Crisis.

As a result of the economic turmoil that ensued, many once profitable and famous Swiss watch houses became insolvent or disappeared. The period of time completely upset the Swiss watch industry both economically and psychologically. During the 1970s and early 1980s, technological upheavals i.e. the appearance of the quartz technology, and an otherwise difficult economic situation resulted in a reduction in the size of the Swiss watch industry. Between 1970 and 1988 Swiss watch employment fell from 90,000 to 28,000.

Outside of Switzerland, the crisis is often referred to as the Quartz Revolution, particularly in the United States where many American companies had gone out of business or had been bought out by foreign interests by the 1960s. When the first quartz watches were introduced in 1969, the United States promptly took a technological lead in part due to microelectronics research for military and space programs. It was American companies like Texas Instruments, Fairchild, and National Semiconductor, who started the mass production of digital quartz watches and made them affordable. Though by 1978 Hong Kong exported the largest number of electronic watches worldwide. US semiconductor companies pulled out of the watch market entirely. With the sole exception of Timex, the remaining traditional American watch companies, including Hamilton, went out of business and sold their brand names to foreign competitors.