BackIn-house movement
Your favourite brand has now announced that it will be using brand-new in-house movements in some of its most popular models. What do you do now?
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Suddenly your favourite watch brand in the world springs a surprise on you. After years of research, months of perilous experimentation and testing and many millions of those pricey Swiss francs of investment, your favourite brand has now announced that it will be using brand-new in-house movements in some of its most popular models.
Hurrah! Yahoo! Praise the lord! Ka-ching!
So what do you do now? Do you instantly buy these new “manufacture" pieces? Even if it means paying more money for the exact same model? Are these in-house movements worth the hype? Or is it all just a brand new marketing strategy?
I wish I could give you a simple answer. But things are somewhat complicated. So pull up a chair and make yourself a cuppa. First of all it is important to note that many brands—even some of the most high-end ones—use mass-produced, off-the-shelf movements in their watches. So it is not at all uncommon to see the exact same movement manufactured by, say, the Swatch Group’s ETA, watches that cost both 3,000 Swiss francs (or around ₹ 200,000) and 300 Swiss francs.
Why the price difference? Some of this is down to the quality and material that goes into the rest of the watch: case, straps, finishing, decoration, and so on. But most of it is down to the badge and the brand premium.
Mind you, this is not unlike other product sectors. Cars with identical engines inside often charge different prices.
Second, off-the-shelf movements are in no way inferior to many, if not most, in-house pieces. In fact, the guys at movement makers, such as ETA, Valjoux, Ronda or Sellita, are experts at making millions of copies of ultra-reliable movements at very low prices.
Take the case of the Valjoux 7750 movement. This is the beating heart of countless chronographs made by almost every major brand there is out there. To this day you can buy watches with 7750s, or clones of the 7750, inside them. And yet the 7750 was first launched in the 1970s. It was designed to be manufactured efficiently and meet the highest standards of quality certification (there are numerous excellent histories of the 7750 online. You should Google them. You’ll be surprised at the brands that have used them).
Therefore the 7750 is every bit as good as any in-house movements made by many, many brands. Indeed many in-house movements are really just thinly modified clones of best-selling mass productions (though most brands don’t like admitting this).
So why this brouhaha over in-house movements?
There are a few legitimate reasons. In-house movements can have better quality, reliability and refinement than procured pieces. This means lower servicing costs, better timekeeping and better integration with overall watch design. But that is for the simpler in-house movements.
As watches get more complicated and more technical, in-house movements are the only way brands can offer unique propositions. Creating a unique tourbillon, a minute repeater or a stylish perpetual calendar usually means making the entire engine in-house with captive talent (this is one reason why such watches also tend to be so expensive).
There is one other reason why in-house movements may be worthwhile—they can often have better resale value.
In general, therefore, there is a simple rule you can use to determine the worth of an in-house movement: The more complicated the watch is, the greater the premium an in-house calibre can demand.
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