5. Rolex
Moving in the 20th century, Rolex came into existence in 1905. The headquarters of Rolex were initially sited in London, England. Later they were moved to Geneva, Switzerland and hence Rolex is termed as a Swiss watch making company. Back in 2003, Rolax company had a revenue of 3 billion US dollars. Rolex watches are globally considered as a status symbol. BusinessWeek, a New York based magazine, ranks Rolex at No.71 on its 2007 annual list of the 100 most valuable global brands. Rolex Company has a massive 2800 employees functioning for them.
4. Rado
Rado is another Swiss manufacturer of wrist watches. It was established in 1917 and has its headquarters in Lengnau, Switzerland. Rado is well known for the usage of scratch proof material in the creation of the watches hence the watches are scratch proof. Not that other companies are not making scratch resistant watches, Rado is considered as the pioneer in this field. With just a small staff of about 470, Rado manufacturers a substantial number of half a million watches per annum. To begin with Rado was formed as as Schlup & Co. Rado has a lot of other sister brands Rado’s V10K is the hardest watch on Earth as certified by Guinness book of world records.
3. Citizen
Citizen is a Tokyo, Japan based watch making company that was first founded as Shokosha Watch Research Institute. Citizen is currently rated as one of the biggest watch making companies of the world. Starting in 1918, Citizen has 16,813 employees currently working under them. In the financial year of 2010, the revenue of the company was estimated to be a massive 252.5 billion US dollars. The huge number of employees and the colossal revenue unquestionably makes it the current biggest watch making company.
2. Casio
Another Japanese watch making company, Casio was established in 1957. The company is involved in production of many electronic instruments. With its headquarters in Shibuya, Tokyo, Casio has the honor of making the world’s first entirely electronic compact calculator. Casio has an total of 11,336 employees as of 2010. Casio’s major work is inclined towards electronic watches. In Casio, a lot of research has taken place and the world is gifted with many multifunctional watches. The first G-Shock watch, The Illuminator/Foxfire backlight and The WQV-1, the world’s first wristwatch with digital camera are some of the major releases of Casio. Casio has a total revenue of $4.616 billion (2010).
1. Swatch
Yet another Swiss company, Swatch is one of the newer names in the watch making business. Swatch has the biggest number of employees working in watch making work in the entire world. It tops our list by 24,240 workers. Swatch was established through the merging of the two Swiss watch manufacturers ASUAG and SSIH. The company has a revenue of 6 billion Swiss Francs.