About this episode

The episode discusses the impressive financial performance of Seiko, Citizen, and Casio in the watch industry amidst challenges faced by Swiss brands.

Seiko, Citizen, and Casio each pulled in over a billion dollars in revenue last year — in most cases record-breaking, and all three landing neck and neck around $1.3 billion with healthy 9–14% net margins. That's remarkable on its own. It's stunning when you remember it happened in the same sub-$5,000 segment that's been punishing the Swiss. While Swatch Group struggles and the broader industry hunts for its footing, Japan's big three are quietly having their strongest year in decades. We dig into why. The short version: they're counter-positioned to everything that's currently working against Swiss luxury. A weak yen against a punishingly strong franc, a value-and-reliability pitch instead of a luxury-and-heritage one, a technology focus (spring drive, solar, high-accuracy quartz, the entire G-Shock universe) at the exact moment tastes drift away from vintage reissues, and diversified distribution into markets like Latin America and India that the Swiss lean on far less. We also get into how different these three businesses actually are under the hood — Casio's pivot to watches as a majority of revenue, and Citizen's sprawling structure spanning La Joux-Perret, Miyota, Bulova…

Topics covered

• watch industry
• Japanese watch brands
• business performance
• luxury market
• technology in watches
• global distribution

Keywords

• Seiko
• Citizen
• Casio
• watch revenue
• luxury watches
• Japanese watches
• G-Shock
• spring drive
• high-accuracy quartz

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Seiko, Citizen, Casio, Swatch Group

Places: Japan, Latin America, India

More episodes of Openwork: Inside the Watch Industry

• Watch Retail Consolidates, Rapidly – What It Means for the Industry and Enthusiasts – Episode 83 · June 1, 2026 · 49 min
• Royal Flop? – AP x Swatch: Brand Building or Crisis Management? – Episode 81 · May 18, 2026 · 58 min
• How Watches Get Allocated – It's Not Just Spend History – Episode 80 · May 11, 2026 · 55 min

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