... Switzerland, because of the strong (expensive) Swiss Franc?!
It is just a
thought that came to my mind after some discussions we had recently. Is this
possible at all? Aren´t most of the German watch companies/watchmakers related
or dependent from Switzerland – more or less?
Two of the well-known player´s belong to Richemont in the case of A. Lange & Söhne and to the Swatch Group in the case of Glashütte Original. Also there is Montblanc which belongs to Richemont as well and is based in Hamburg (Germany), but produces their watches in Switzerland.
Quite a few, to say the least, parts come (still!?) from Switzerland. No matter which German brand we are talking about, quite often they get parts (cases, dials, movements …) from Switzerland. Not to speak about machines like e.g. CNC machines (today a must even for smaller watch companies - more or less) which are coming quite often from Switzerland as well.
Nonetheless there are some interesting activities/projects going on, in Germany and I will try to introduce a few of them - briefly. There is (best to my knowledge) one very important producer of CNC machines and he delivers to at least one brand of each of the big watch groups, some very well-known independent companies and yes most of them are based in Switzerland. The name of the company is Lehmann and later we will see they can do even more than machines.
Let´s have a look on a few examples from Germany …