Omega

Omega SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.

The forerunner of Omega, La Generale Watch Co., was founded at La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, in 1848 by Louis Brandt, who assembled key-wound precision pocket watches from parts supplied by local craftsmen.

He sold his watches from Italy to Scandinavia by way of England, his chief market.

In 1894, his two sons Louis-Paul and César developed their own in-house manufacturing and total production control system that allowed component parts to be interchangeable.

Founded by Louis Brandt in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1903, the company formerly operated as La Generale Watch Co. until incorporating the name Omega in 1903, becoming Louis Brandt et Frère-Omega Watch & Co. In 1984, the company officially changed its name to Omega SA and opened its museum in Biel/Bienne to the public.

Omega is a subsidiary of The Swatch Group.

Watches developed with these techniques were marketed under the Omega brand of La Generale Watch Co. By 1903, the success of the Omega brand led La Generale Watch Co to spin off Omega as its own company, and the Omega Watch Co was officially founded in 1903.

Louis-Paul and César 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.

Britain's Royal Flying Corps used Omega watches in 1917 for its combat units, followed by the U.S. Army in 1918, and NASA in 1969 for Apollo 11.

The economic difficulties brought on by the First World War led Paul-Emile Brandt to work in 1925 towards the union of Omega and Tissot, then to their merger in 1930 into the group SSIH, Geneva.

Omega developed the slogan "Omega – Exact time for life" in 1931 based on its historical performance at the Observatory trials.

Omega's early prowess in designing and regulating timing movements was made possible by the company's incorporation of new chronometric innovations.

Notable dates for the Omega precision records:

Omega has been the official timekeeper of the Olympics since 1932 and is the current timekeeper of the America's Cup yacht race.

Omega was a main partner of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Under Brandt's leadership and Joseph Reiser's from 1955, the SSIH Group continued to grow and multiply, absorbing or creating some fifty companies, including Lanco and Lemania, manufacturer of the most famous Omega chronograph movements.

For more than a decade (1958–1969), Omega was the largest manufacturer of COSC chronometers.

Before 1962 it was a simple alphanumeric code of two letters followed by four digits.

By the 1970s, SSIH had become Switzerland's top producer of finished watches and third in the world.

Up to this time, Omega outsold Rolex, its main Swiss rival in the luxury watch segment, in the race for "King of Swiss Watch brands", although Rolex sold at a higher price point.

Omega tended to be more revolutionary and more professionally focused, while Rolex watches were more ‘evolutionary’ and famous for their mechanical pieces and branding.

While Omega and Rolex had dominated in the pre-quartz era, this changed in the 1970s during the quartz crisis, when Japanese watch manufacturers, such as Seiko and Citizen, rose to dominance due to their use of quartz movements.

In response, Rolex continued concentrating on its expensive mechanical chronometers where its expertise lay (though it did have some experimentation in quartz), while Omega tried to compete in the quartz watch market with its own quartz movements.

Weakened by the severe monetary crisis and recession of 1975 to 1980, SSIH was bailed out by banks in 1981.

During this period, Seiko expressed interest in acquiring Omega, but nothing came of the talks.

Switzerland's other watch making giant Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie AG (ASUAG), supplier of a large range of Swiss movements and watch assemblies, was in economic difficulty.

It was the principal manufacturer of Ébauche (unfinished movements) and owner, through their sub-holding company General Watch Co (GWC), of various other Swiss watch brands including Longines, Rado, Certina, Hamilton Watch Company and Mido.

After drastic financial restructuring, the R&D departments of ASUAG and SSIH merged production operations at the ETA complex in Granges.

The two companies completely merged forming ASUAG-SSIH, a holding company, in 1983.

Two years later, the holding company was taken over by a group of private investors led by Nicolas Hayek.

Renamed Société de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie (SMH), the new group over the next decade proceeded to become one of the top watch producers in the world.

Omega experienced a resurgence with advertisements that focused on product placement strategies, such as in the James Bond 007 films; the character had previously worn a Rolex Submariner but switched to the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M with GoldenEye (1995), and later an Omega Planet Ocean and Aqua Terra.

Omega adopted many elements of Rolex's business model (i.e. premium pricing, tighter controls of dealer pricing, increasing advertising, etc.), which succeeded in increasing Omega's market share and name recognition to become a direct competitor to Rolex.

In 1998 it became The Swatch Group, which now manufactures Omega and other brands such as Blancpain, Swatch, and Breguet.

In 2019, Omega licensed its name and branding to Marcolin for a collection of men's and women's optical frames and sunglasses.

In March 2022, Omega collaborated with sibling company Swatch, both of which are owned by The Swatch Group, to release a budget version of its iconic Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch.

The so-called "MoonSwatch", available in 11 colors, is made of bioceramic (a mixture of ceramic and castor oil) and priced at $260 / £207, well below the $5,250 price (as of March 2022) of the least expensive Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch.

Observatory trials focused on the science of Chronometry and the ability to make chronometers measure time precisely.

Only Patek Philippe and Omega participated every year in the trials.

Omega's performances at these competitions garnered the company a reputation of precision and innovation.