General Swiss watch industry
The General Swiss watch industry AG ( ASUAG ) was a 1931 to 1983 existing Swiss watch group , ultimately as part of a merger for the Swatch Group was converted.
ASUAG was created as a reaction to the global economic crisis that broke out in 1929 . Just one year after the outbreak of this deep recession , Swiss watch exports fell by 15%. As a countermeasure, a two-pronged strategy was implemented . At the political level, the so-called clock statute ( French statute horloger ) was established, which, for example, declared factory expansions or new openings to be subject to approval and stipulated mandatory minimum standards for prices and payment methods. In addition, a concentration process should be initiated at company level, which aimed at higher economies of scale and thus possible reductions in administered prices. This resulted in ASUAG, which is mainly rooted in German-speaking Switzerland, and SSIH, which is mainly anchored in French- speaking Switzerland, as more comprehensive group structures .
The chosen cartelist strategy was promising insofar as competition within Switzerland was partially eliminated, which hoped that smaller companies (the subsidiaries of the new groups) in particular would have greater chances of survival. This calculation then worked to a certain extent: After an absolute low in 1932, the export demand for watches recovered from just 40% of the pre-crisis value to 73% by 1935. However, she remained in this area for several years; it was not possible to compensate for the massive drop in demand caused by the global economy for a long time.
After the Second World War, the watch statute was abolished, but the ASUAG and SSIH groups continued to exist in a market that was again more liberalized. In 1983 they merged to form the Swatch Group , which still exists today , on the initiative of Nicolas Hayek .
swell
- Johann Boillat: Les véritables maîtres du Temps. Le cartel horloger suisse (1919-1941) . Alphil, Neuchâtel 2013, ISBN 978-2-940489-35-0 .
- F. Kauffungen: Watchmaking in the Canton of Solothurn
- «Solothurner Zeitung» from January 31, 1936, with a lecture by Federal Councilor Hermann Obrecht
Individual evidence
- ↑ Johann Boillat: Les veritables maitres du temps: le cartel horloger suisse (1919-1941) . Editions Alphil-Presses universitaires suisses, Neuchatel 2013, ISBN 978-2-940489-35-0 , p. 353-434 .