Omega Watches
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| Omega SA | |
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| Type of Company | Member of the Swatch Group |
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| Founded | 1848 by Louis Brandt |
| Headquarters | Bienne, Switzerland |
| Key people | Nicolas G. Hayek, Chairman Stephen Urquhart, President |
| Industry | Watch manufacturing |
| Slogan | Official Timekeeper |
| Website | http://www.omegawatches.com |
Omega SA is a watch company based in Biel/Bienne Switzerland and is one of the more prestigious brands in timepieces. It is one of the most prestigious brands of the Swatch Group.
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[edit] History
Founded at La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland in 1848 by 23-year-old Louis Brandt who assembled key-wound precision pocket watches from parts supplied by local craftsmen. He travelled throughout Europe selling his watches from Italy to Scandinavia by way of England, his chief market. After Louis Brandt's death in 1879, his two sons Louis-Paul and Cesar, troubled by irregular deliveries of questionable quality, abandoned the unsatisfactory assembly workshop system in favour of in-house manufacturing and total production control. Due to the greater supply of manpower, communications and energy in Bienne, the enterprise moved into a small factory in January 1880, then bought the entire building in December. Two years later the company moved into a converted spinning-factory in the Gurzelen district of Bienne, where headquarters are still situated today. Their first series-produced calibres, Labrador and Gurzelen, as well as, the famous Omega calibre of 1894, would ensure the brand's marketing success.
Louis-Paul and Cesar Brandt both died in 1903, leaving one of Switzerland's largest watch companies - with 240,000 watches produced annually and employing 800 people - in the hands of four young people, the oldest of whom, Paul-Emile Brandt, was not yet 24. Considered to be the great architect and builder of OMEGA, Paul-Emile's influence would be felt over the next half-century. The economic difficulties brought on by the First World War would lead him to work actively from 1925 toward the union of OMEGA and Tissot, then to their merger in 1930 within the group SSIH, Geneva. Under his leadership, then that of Joseph Reiser beginning in 1955, the SSIH Group continued to grow and multiply, absorbing or creating some fifty companies. By the seventies, SSIH had become Switzerland's number one producer of finished watches and number three in the world.
Weakened by the severe monetary crisis and recession of 1975 to 1980, SSIH was bailed out by the banks in 1981. During this period, Seiko expressed interest in acquiring Omega, but nothing came out of the talks. Switzerland's other watchmaking giant ASUAG, principal producer of movement blanks and owner of the Longines, Rado and Swatch brands, was saved in similar fashion one year later. After drastic financial cleansing and a restructuring of the two groups' R&D and production operations at the ETA complex in Granges, the two giants merged in 1983 to form the Holding ASUAG-SSIH. In 1985 the holding company was taken over by a group of private investors under the strategy and leadership of Nicolas Hayek. Immediately renamed SMH, Société suisse de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie, the new group achieved rapid growth and success to become today's top watch producer in the world. Named Swatch Group in 1998, it now includes Blancpain and Breguet. Dynamic and flourishing, OMEGA remains one of its most prestigious flagship brands.
[edit] Trivia
- The group of world's famous personalities endorsing the prestigious brand include Nicole Kidman, Cindy Crawford, Michael Schumacher, Ernie Els and recently on June 22, Bollywood actor and son of Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan has been made the new brand ambassador.
- Omega's Speedmaster Professional Chronograph was the first watch worn on the Moon. All subsequent manned NASA missions also utilized this wristwatch. NASA mistakenly feared that automatic-winding watches relied on gravity and so insisted that the "moon watch" be manually wound. In fact, automatic movements utilize momentum and could conceivably work better in a zero-gravity environment, since the moving parts would not be subject to gravity-induced friction.
- Its Seamaster 300M Professional Chronometer is the current official James Bond watch, used by Pierce Brosnan in each of his Bond movies since, but not including, GoldenEye. In the GoldenEye film, the automatic Seamaster 300M Professional was featured. Daniel Craig, the current James Bond of the film "Casino Royale" proudly wears his Omega Seamaster.
- Luc Besson's movie The Big Blue featured Omega's Seamaster Professional 600 which has become a collectible.
- Omega has frequently been the official timekeeper for the Olympics, beginning with the 1932 Summer Olympics. Omega was the official timekeeper for the 2006 Winter Olympics and will be for the 2008 Summer Olympics as well.
- For the 40th Anniversary of James Bond a special commerative edition of the watch was made available where only 10,007 units were produced. The watch is identical to the model: 2531.80.00 except the blue watch face had a 007 logo inscribed across it. The band also had 007 inscribed on the clasp.
[edit] Co-axial Escapement
In 1999 Omega made history by introducing the first mass-produced watch incorporating the revolutionary Co-axial escapement - invented by English watchmaker George Daniels. Considered by many to be one of the most significant horological advancements since the invention of the lever escapement, the co-axial escapement functions with virtually no lubrication thereby eliminating one of the shortcomings of the traditional lever escapement. By utilizing radial friction instead of sliding friction at the impulse surfaces the co-axial escapement significantly reduces friction, theoretically resulting in longer service intervals and greater accuracy over time.
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