The Apple Watch is a ‘fantastic product,’ according to Tag Heuer, the luxury watch maker that previously rated the device as “too feminine” and having “no sex appeal.” earlier. Tag Heuer has finally recognized it is not that easy to make a smartwatch after all.
No “Swiss made” label
In an interview with Bloomberg, Jean-Claude Biver, who heads the watch division for Tag’s parent company, said they are working on Apple Watch competitor that will not have the “Swiss made” label on it.
Biver said that making the watch in Switzerland is not an option. He added, “We can’t produce the engine, the chips, the applications, the hardware – nobody can produce it in Switzerland.” Silicon Valley would be shipping all the parts of the watch, but the design is Swiss. Biver said the watch case, the dial, the design, the idea and the crown will be Swiss. For winning the Swiss made label, at least 50% of a watch’s movements need to be made in the country, but the company’s expertise is primarily in know-how, Biver said.
Apart from the regular expected features like GPS monitoring and health apps, Tag Heuer will add some unique features as well like linking it up with sports sponsors.
Biver likes Apple Watch
Even though his company is making its own smartwatch, Biver is bullish on Apple’s, according to Business Insider. Biver said the Apple Watch is “a fantastic product, an incredible achievement,” adding, “the Apple Watch connects me to the future. My watch connects me to history, to eternity.”
Biver’s statement stands in sharp contrast to the one he made in September claiming that Apple Watch lacked “sex appeal, and looks too feminine.”
Another setback for the Swiss watch will be that now they will be more expensive when exported following the Swiss National Bank’s decision to withdraw the minimum exchange rate between the Swiss franc and euro.
According to Citigroup analysts, the smartwatch market will be around $10 billion in 2018 from as much as $1.8 billion in 2014. Around half of the market in the coming years will be from traditional watch wearers shifting to the tech devices.
