After a consolidation of the mechanical watch industry in Switzerland during the 1970s, mass production of quartz wristwatches took off under the leadership of the Swatch Group of companies, a Swiss conglomerate with vertical control of the production of Swiss watches and related products.

Today, the Swatch Group is the world's largest watch company.

The Swatch Group Ltd. is a Swiss company and watch manufacturer.

The Swatch Group has around 23, 600 employees.

The Swatch Group formed from two financially troubled predecessor companies:

Taken private, in 1985, by then CEO Nicolas Hayek, with the understanding of the Swiss Banks and the financial assistance of a group of Swiss private investors, it was renamed SMH in 1986, and ultimately Swatch Group Ltd in 1998.

The Swatch Group started offering their first class for aspiring watchmakers in September 2005.

Oscilloquartz SA, a company of the Swatch Group Electronic Systems, also produces NTP time server products.

* The Swatch Group Ltd., " History of the Swatch Group "

-The Swatch Group Ltd. Company Profile

* The Swatch Group History

Swatch Group Ltd.

Swatch Group Ltd.

Swatch Group Ltd.

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For quartz wristwatches, subsidiaries of Swatch manufactured watch batteries ( Renata ), oscillators ( Oscilloquartz ) and integrated circuits ( Ebauches Electronic SA ).

The launch of the new " Swatch " brand watch in 1983, by the then ETA SA CEO Ernst Thomke and his young team of engineers, was marked by bold new styling and design.

Swatch began test drives of the car in Switzerland in 2012 and plans to bring the car to market by 2015 or 2016.

* Biel Mean Time, the scale used by Swatch Internet Time

If I Was, a career retrospective, was released in 1993, while in 1998 the single " Breathe " was a hit in Europe, boosted by its use in a Swatch TV ad campaign.

Local merchants are complemented by national retailers and restaurants, such as Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnny Rockets, Five Guys, Ann Taylor, Sunglass Hut, Banana Republic, Gap, Swatch, Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, bebe, Fire & Ice, Starbucks, Brooks Brothers, Urban Outfitters, Uno Chicago Grill, and Swarovski.

Swatch Internet Time ( or beat time ) is a decimal time concept introduced in 1998 and marketed by the Swatch corporation as an alternative, decimal measure of time.

Swatch Internet Time was announced on October 23, 1998, in a ceremony at the Junior Summit ' 98, attended by Nicolas G. Hayek, President and CEO of the Swatch Group, G. N.

During the Summit, Swatch Internet Time became the official time system for Nation1, an online country created and run by children.

Although Swatch does not specify units smaller than one. beat, third party implementations have extended the standard by adding " centibeats " or " sub-beats " as a decimal fraction, for extended precision: @ 248. 00.

No explicit format was provided for dates, although the Swatch website formerly displayed the Gregorian calendar date in the order day-month-year, separated by periods and prefixed by the letter d ( d31. 01. 99 ).

* Mido ( watch ), a traditional Swiss watch brand owned by the Swatch Group

Swatch responded to this by applying for an exemption to RoHS compliance.

Omega is owned by the Swatch Group.

Those ébauche producers that remain today are almost all owned by ETA, which is a subsidiary of the Swatch Group.

Now called Wainfleet Harbour, the channel crosses sand and mudflats to reach Wainfleet Swatch, an area of water protected from the North Sea by the Inner Knock sandbank at low water.

" Swatch " began development in the early 1980s, under the leadership of the then ETA SA's CEO, Ernst Thomke with a small team of enthusiastic watch engineers led by Elmar Mock and Jacques Müller, The engineers of Swatch designed the case back of the watch as a movement main plate ( platine ).

Swatch was originally intended to re-capture entry level market share lost by Swiss manufacturers during the aggressive growth of Japanese companies such as Seiko and Citizen in the 1960s and 1970s and to re-popularize analog watches at a time when digital watches had achieved wide popularity.

The launch of the Swatch brand in 1983 was marked by bold new styling, design and marketing.

The Swatch Group owns the following brands: Breguet, Blancpain, Jaquet Droz, Glashütte Original, Léon Hatot, Omega, Tiffany & Co., Rado, Longines, Union Glashütte, Tissot, Calvin Klein, Certina, Mido, Pierre Balmain, Hamilton, Flik Flak and Endura.