Omega

(Active since 1848)

Omega SA is a Swiss manufacturer of high-quality watches, famous for their durability, proven by countless extreme condition tests.

When the company was just founded, it mainly specialized in assembling pocket watches from parts and details, supplied by local manufacturers. It was only in 1894, when Omega started producing its own mechanisms thanks to the development of in-house manufacturing, as well as the system, that helped run and control both processes: production and assembling. This year turned out to be revolutionary for the company. With 800 employees and 240,000 watches annual production output, by 1903 Omega SA had become one of Switzerland’s largest watchmaking companies, as it remains now. The history of the company has many ups and downs, including the threat of bankruptcy and closure after the 1st world war and during the financial crisis 1975-1980, rivalry with another major player, Rolex, and competition with many prominent watchmakers.

Throughout its long history, the company has repeatedly become both a pioneer and a recordsman in various fields. Just to mention a few of them: the company won the Grand Prix at The Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris for its legendary design of the “Greek Temple” pocket watch, its “Art Nouveau” collection was awarded Grand Prix in 1906 in Milano, and in 1936 the watch by Omega won the Kew-Teddington Precision Competition with 97.8 points out of 100 and the record is still unbeaten. Along with the already mentioned records the company’s list of achievements counts more than 90 victories in precision competitions and around 70 world accuracy records.

The name of Omega is connected with space and marine observations and explorations. It was the Omega Speedmaster watch that astronaut Buzz Aldrin had on his wrist while exploring the moon on July 20th, 1969. Neil Armstrong also had a timepiece by Omega on that day. What is important, the Speedmaster is the only model to be certified by NASA for space travel. In addition, this model was chosen by the Russian space corporation NPO Energia for work in space, and Alexei Leonov had the Omega watch at the time of the Soyuz-Apollo docking.

Omega watches have always been compared to timepieces by Rolex, which is no surprise: these two largest luxury Swiss watchmakers are world-famous for their items of exceptional durability and high quality. There was a time around the 1970s, when the Omega brand outsold Rolex, although its watches sold at lower prices. The experts say, this can be explained by the fact that Omega watches are as a rule more professionally focused and, which is most important, revolutionary, while Rolex timepieces pay tribute to tradition, rather than innovation.

Trusted by millions of clients and corporations all over the world, Omega has been presented in many important events and films both as a sponsor and a brand itself. Since 1995, the brand has been associated with James Bond movies, which is interesting, because before that the main character used to have timepieces by Rolex, Seiko and Pulsar on. Since 1932, Omega has been the official timekeeper for the Olympics, which is truly prestigious. It became the first company in history to time all sports disciplines. Since then, Omega has become the Official Timekeeper at the Olympic Games more than 20 times.