The Swiss watch industry has been jittery since the launch of the Apple watch and the smart watch market in general has caused erosion in sales of Swiss watches. The reactions have varied from the good to the ugly. Easily the most ridiculous response has come from Swiss watchmaker H. Moser & Cie who decided to produce a replica of the Apple watch called the Swiss Alp Watch – only it’s not smart!
H. Moser & Cie has single handedly flushed centuries of Swiss watchmaking tradition down the toilet by aping the Apple Watch design – minus its inner core tech attributes and displayed a lack of innovation and creativity. The attempt is akin to a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding vehicle! If this is the future of Swiss haute horlogerie than it appears bleak and in the wrong hands!
The H. Moser & Cie CEO, Edouard Meylan who has grown up in Switzerland comes from a family of watchmakers. A little online research linked him to another fiasco not so long ago – a mechanical phone called Celsius X VI II. The hideous cell phone worth $300k was composed of 600 mechanical parts with a mechanical time display featuring a tourbillion movement protected by a sapphire crystal window. Any guesses which of these two will be the bigger flop?
