Timex watches
by David Barth
written June 2003
Timex
Descending from several companies, the earliest of which was founded in 1857, Timex is a direct descendant of several 19th century American clock and watch
manufacturers. The Waterbury Watch Company, founded in 1880, and the Robert. H. Ingersoll & Brothers firm, founded a year later in 1881, made millions of pocket
watches and sold them around the world.
With the beginning of World War I, a great demand arose for a new timepiece, the wristwatch, that could be used more easily that the pocket watch on the battlefield
or in the trenches. Timex's forerunners, Waterbury Watch Company and Ingersoll, made and sold some of these early wartime wristwatches. During World War I, the
inexpensive Ingersoll watch sold for one dollar.
In 1942, Waterbury was bought by a Scandinavian consortium to make fuse timers for artillery shells and during WWII, and became the largest artillery fuse producer
in the US.
The first Timex-branded watch, introduced in 1950, used a new movement that replaced jewels with long-wearing bearings, making it far less expensive than Swiss
watches, yet more durable and easier to produce. That movement is known as the pin lever movement.
The company reduced the number of watch parts from around 120 in similar priced, imported watches to only 98 parts. Import watches used 31 screws while Timex
watches had only 4 screws. Timex used automated mass production techniques and interchangeable parts to keep manufacturing costs low. Timex sold watches
through jewelry and department stores at a 50 percent margin and sold watches through drug stores for a 30 percent margin.
By the 1960's, Timex was the most popular watch brand in the country, known for the famous slogan: “Timex - It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” Advertising
was the key to Timex’s success in the 1950s, and by 1962, Timex held 33 percent of the US watch market. By 1965, the company had 10 percent of the German
market.
In the late 1960s Timex began manufacturing high-end watches with jeweled movements, and in 1972 began manufacturing quartz movements for its
watches.
Timex touted itself as one of the few American watch companies because its manufacturing plants were in the Virgin Islands. In the 1980s Timex moved production
to Asia due to increasing labor costs, although the world headquarters is still in Middlebury, Connecticut.
In 1980 Timex diversified into home health care and personal computers, but both of those ventures failed.
During the 1980s, Timex purchased quartz movements instead of manufacturing them itself.
Timex has maintained market superiority since the 1950s by introducing innovative designs and technology, like the Indiglo® night-light which was named one of the
best products of the year by Business Week and Fortune magazines in 1993. In 1995, Fairchild Publications named Timex America's favorite accessory brand and
second favorite fashion brand overall, beating out promotion powerhouses like Nike and Levi's.
Timex Corporation, headquartered in Middlebury, Connecticut, currently does business in over 90 countries around the globe and has been the largest-selling watch
brand in America since the 1960's, with domestic distribution through approximately 100,000 outlets.