DIY Movement

DIY Movement, Shocker Heard Around the Watch World

In August 2002, the giant movement maker ETA SA, owned by the Swatch Group, announced that starting on Jan. 1,2003, it would reduce its deliveries of ebauches, or movement "blanks," to companies outside the Swatch Group. On Jan. 1, 2006, ETA declared, it would stop them altogether. ETA, whose movement blanks were the foundation of the vast majority of Swiss-made mechanical movements, said it would be happy to deliver finished movements in place of the ebauches it was withholding.
One reason was that delivering sets of unfinished movement parts was a difficult and expensive process and did not make sense for the company financially. Ebauches accounted for less than 2% of total Swatch Group sales, the company pointed out. Furthermore, the Swatch Group was sick of supplying ebauches to firms that would finish them, rename them, and then imply to consumers that they themselves had made them.
ETA's announcement, as you might expect, inspired some strenuous objections from its customers. These included the largest, Sellita, which each year bought hundreds of thousands of ETA's ebauches, finished them, and sold them to watch brands. As a result, the Swiss ComCo (Competition Commission) undertook a two-year investigation as to whether the Swatch Group was violating the law. Ultimately, it ruled in ETA's favor, kind of. Through the year 2008, ETA had to deliver 85 percent of the average number of movement blanks it had delivered in the years 1999, 2000 and 2001. Starting in 2009, the deliveries need only be 50 percent of that average. In 2010, ETA is required to deliver just 25 percent of the average, and in 2011 ETA is permitted to stop ebauches deliveries entirely.

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