A few months ago, the CEO of the Swatch Group, the biggest watchmaker in the world, said that he was not interested in the wearables market. Today, the Wall Street Journal thinks he may be having second thoughts (the WSJ is behind a paywall, but this link may work).
This was CEO Nick Hayek in January:
“We have all the know-how but we do not want to build up stock of technology bombs people won’t want to buy.”
But the WSJ now quotes a Swatch spokeswoman as saying that there will be “fitness functions” of some sort in the Touch line of watches, pictured here, next year. From the WSJ:
“Nick Hayek is very concerned for sure,” said Mario Ortelli, an analyst at Bernstein. “But he can’t say that publicly.”
Analysts estimate that wearables could eat 10 percent of Swatch’s low-end sales and 5 percent of its mid-price sales. Its stock is down 11 percent this year.