The History of Citizen Watches
Citizen is a watch brand that is famous all over the world. It has been making watches for almost one hundred years. Many times, over the years, Citizen has been at the forefront of the watchmaking industry. It’s a company that is always looking to be better and more modern. The list of successful Citizen technologies and products is long, including its solar-charging technology. From durable, feature-rich watches to ones with long-lasting charges to simple and elegant timepieces, Citizen has a wide range of watches suitable for any interest.
In the early days of Citizen, its focus was on creating inexpensive watches in Japan. It was founded in the 1930s by investors in Japan and Switzerland, although its roots go back to 1918. At that time, the brand was registered in Switzerland by Rodolphe Schmid, for the watches he sold in Japan. When Citizen was founded in the 1930s, it used the Shokosha Watch Research Institute and Schmid’s assembly plant. Citizen gradually became more popular in Japan until World War II, although it had little success on a global scale.
A few years later, the brand would have it’s first major success. It started to make a name for itself by focusing on creating new technologies. In 1959, Citizen came out with the first timepiece in Japan that was fully waterproof, called the Parameter. The success of this product led to the development of a whole line of diving watches from Citizen. More and more successes would follow.
In addition to being one of the brands that pioneered and introduced quartz movements to the public, Citizen also developed the Eco-Drive movement. These days, Eco-Drive is well known and respected within the watch industry, as it was one of the first movements to charge via solar power. It first arrived in 1976, and Citizen is proud of being environmentally aware from such an early stage.
The Citizen corporate philosophy is based on precision, accuracy and quality. In 1993, Citizen introduced the first multi-band atomic timekeeping watch in the world. This timepiece guarantees precision by synchronizing its time to atomic clocks around the world. More recently, in 2018 Citizen partnered with Disney to create a co-branded collection of watches based on Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars.
If you’re looking for a quality name-brand timepiece, it’s hard to go wrong with a Citizen watch.