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The trademark ″Technos″ was firstly registered in and used since 1924, with an increasing success, thanks to the quality of its mechanical and automatic watches. After WWII, it has had years of significant market shares, especially in Japan and in Brazil. Like many other Swiss Watch Brands, it has almost been swept into oblivion by the onslought of the Japanese Watch industry in the mid 1970s and relives progressingly out of its present stronghold in Brazil.
The company was founded 1900, under the name M. Gunzinger-Hug, by Melchior Gunzinger, in Welschenrohr, in the Swiss Jura Mountains, Canton of Solothurn, Switzerland.
Melchior’s son, Joseph Gunzinger took over the small watch manufacturing facility in 1920 and changed the name to Gunzinger Bros Ltd.[1]
1924 he registered the TM Technos and started manufacturing and exporting watches under that specific name. Technos became a very successful brand and the company had to increase its manufacturing capacity, to become a sizeable company, almost the sole employer in the area: in 1970, as Josef Gunzinger sold the company to General Watch Co, it occupied 450 people and exported the world over, but especially to Japan & Brazil.
Soon however, began the downturn originating from the onslaught of Japanese watches. Technos started losing most of its market shares, and by 1976, only the Japanese market was still managing to provide some orders.
1977 the company was transferred to Biel/Bienne in Montres Edox SA premises. Both companies were reorganized under a new joint management, to fight for survival. 1980 Certina was also integrated in the ad-hoc structure.
1982 the company was sold with all rights to the TM Technos and all the numerous others held, to its long-time Japanese importer Heiwado & Co, Tokyo, Japan (see ja:テクノス ) and took its new name on. Its new owners granted a limited licence to use the trademark Technos to the importing company in Brazil , allowing them to design and manufacture their own Technos branded watches.
1995, the company sold the rights to the TM Technos for Brazil, the whole of South America and the Caribbean to TECHNOS RELÓGIOS S. A. , followed in 2002 by the sale of the remaining worldwide rights.
However, Gunzinger Bros Technos Watch Co Ltd Welschenrohr, located in its town of origin still exists as a backup office for the after sales service of the countless Technos Swiss Made watches sold in Japan between 1955 and 2002.
In Brazil the history of Technos began in 1956, when Centauro Importadora, from Rio Grande do Sul, started to represent Technos watches, with the slogan: "The most punctual Swiss of the world". Now called TECHNOS RELÓGIOS S. A., with its parent company, Technos da Amazônia Indústria e Comércio Ltda, both 100% Brazilian companies, they produce about a million watches a year in their own manufacturing facilities in Manaus. Now based on Citizen movements, Technos watches are no longer Swiss Made. (See [1] )
Technos has become the leader in Brazil, with a 35% of market share. The first company in its area of activities to be certificated ISO 9002, it has obtained more than 26 times the prize « Mérito Lojista ».
through their sister company in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Technos Brazil are now holding the rights to the trademark “Technos” worldwide.(see *[2]
see the latest styles at website [3]