Big brands may be moving to take everything in-house, but many mid-tier (and some higher-end) companies still rely on Sellita to fill the gap left by ETA. Now, the third-party supplier is working to develop its own movements from scratch.
By James Buttery

Were you to ask even the average watch enthusiast which companies produce the most mechanical movements in Switzerland today it?s unlikely many would think to include Sellita. This is perhaps understandable given that the Chaux-de-Fonds manufacturer is in the business of keeping its customers ? namely watch brands ? happy rather than marketing its services to the end consumer, millions of whom unknowingly wear watches containing one of its movements.
Sellita has always been a B2B enterprise, quietly supplying the watch industry with a huge number of tried-and-tested mechanical movements each year. In recent years that number has been as high 1.2 million annually; to put it into perspective, that?s more movements than Rolex and is only exceeded by the output of the Swatch Group/ETA. TAG Heuer uses Sellita movements in a number of models, including this ladies’ Aquaracer. All watches shown in this story used Sellita calibres in one form or another.
But Sellita?s reliance on watch brands buying its movement has seen it suffer more than most in the recent industry downturn, with business down 50 per cent over the last three years. Now, with sales starting to recover, the privately owned firm is about the embark on the l...