Омега: История швейцарского часового бренда

Swiss watchmaker

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

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

In 1892, Louis Brandt, the founder of Omega, manufactured the world's first minute repeating wristwatch in collaboration with Audemars Piguet, which provided the minute repeating movement. The 18K gold watch is now kept in the Omega Museum in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. In 1999, after the successful development of Calibre 2500, Omega made history by introducing the first mass produced watch incorporating the coaxial escapement — invented by English watchmaker George Daniels. Considered by many to be one of the more significant horological advances since the invention of the lever escapement, the coaxial escapement functions with virtually no lubrication, thereby eliminating one of the shortcomings of the traditional lever escapement. Through using radial friction instead of sliding friction at the impulse surfaces the coaxial escapement significantly reduces friction, theoretically resulting in longer service intervals and greater accuracy over time. On January 24, 2007, Omega unveiled its new Calibres 8500 and 8501, two coaxial (25,200 bph) movements created exclusively from inception by Omega. On January 17, 2013, Omega announced the creation of the world's first movement that is resistant to magnetic fields greater than 1.5 Tesla (15,000 Gauss), far exceeding the levels of magnetic resistance achieved by any previous movement a similar movement was used by Daniel Craig as James Bond, though the official collectors watch was labelled as resistant to 15,007 Gauss in honor of the fictional secret agent's codename. Most anti magnetic watches utilize a soft iron Faraday cage which distributes electromagnetism in such a way that it cancels the effect on the movement contained within. This type of anti magnetic case required de magnetizing procedures of the case. Omega has instead built a movement of non ferrous materials eliminating the need for such a cage and providing a far greater resistance to magnetic fields eliminating necessity of additional maintenance. In 2015, they introduced the Master Chronometer Certification, which denotes that along with a COSC (Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute) certification, a movement has also passed a series of eight tests set out by METAS (The Federal Institute of Metrology). Master Chronometer watches have a minimum water resistance rating of (the 2022 Speedmaster '57 is a Master Chronometer with water resistance), a minimum power reserve rating of 60 hours, an accuracy rating of 0/+5 seconds per day, and are resistant to magnetic fields of 15,000 gauss. The Master Chronometer Certification debuted on the Globemaster but they now offer it across many more of its watch collections.

Before 1962 it was a simple alphanumeric code of two letters followed by four digits. Between 1962 and 2007 Omega used the Mapics system, consisting of two letters followed by either six or seven numbers. The PIC system started in 1988, running concurrently with Mapics, and featured an arrangement of eight numbers in three groups (XXXX. XX. XX). Finally, today we have the PIC14 structure, with 14 digits in six groups.

The Omega wristwatch Ref. H6582/D96043 (1960) once owned by Elvis Presley was sold in auction by Phillips for US$1.812 million in Geneva on May 12, 2018, making it the most expensive Omega timepiece ever sold at auction. The watch was manufactured in 1960 and was sold by Tiffany & Co. in 1961. The Omega Stainless Steel Tourbillon 301 was sold in auction by Phillips for around US$1.43 million (1,428,500 CHF) in Geneva on November 12, 2017. It was then the most expensive Omega timepiece ever sold at auction. In March 1965, the Omega Speedmaster was declared “Flight Qualified for all Manned Spaced Missions." On July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the Moon wearing his Omega Speedmaster watch. The model of the first watch on the Moon is the Omega Speedmaster 105.012.

First worn by Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra in 1962, the "Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph" was chosen by NASA to become the only chronograph certified for use on all missions since 1965. The selection of the "Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph" for American astronauts was the subject of a rivalry between Omega and Bulova. All subsequent crewed NASA missions also used this handwound wristwatch. NASA started selecting the chronograph in the early 1960s. Automatic chronograph wristwatches were not available until 1969. Even so, all the instrument panel clocks and time keeping mechanisms in the spacecraft on those space missions were Bulova Accutrons with tuning fork movements, because at the time NASA did not know how well a mechanical movement would work in zero gravity.

The Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph was the first watch on the Moon, worn by Buzz Aldrin. Although Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong was first to set foot on the Moon, he left his 105.012 Speedmaster inside the Lunar Module Eagle as a backup because the LM's electronic timer had malfunctioned. Aldrin wore his, making his Speedmaster the first watch worn on the Moon. Armstrong's watch is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C. Aldrin's was stolen; he mentions in his 1973 book, Return to Earth, that when donating several items to the Smithsonian Institution his Omega was one of the few things stolen from his personal effects. In 2007, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph, Omega unveiled the commemorative Speedmaster Professional Chronograph Moonwatch. The watch had the distinctive features of the first hand winding Omega Speedmaster introduced in 1957. It was sold in an edition of 1,957 pieces.

In December 2018, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) released a report assigning environmental ratings to 15 major watch manufacturers and jewelers in Switzerland, and Omega was given the lowest environmental rating, "Latecomers/Non transparent", suggesting the manufacturer has taken few actions addressing the impact of its manufacturing activities on the environment and climate change. Omega defended its continued role as official time keeper of the Olympics by stating its policy to "not to get involved in certain political issues because it would not advance the cause of sport in which our commitment lies." Omega has been the official timekeeper of the Olympics since 1932 including the controversial 1936 and 1980 Olympics, which also saw widespread boycotts over human rights concerns.