The
quartz crisis was the upheaval in the
watchmaking industry caused by the advent of
quartz watches in the 1970s and early 1980s, that largely replaced
mechanical watches around the world.
[1][2] It caused a significant decline of the
Swiss watchmaking industry, which chose to remain focused on traditional mechanical watches, while the majority of the world's watch production shifted to Japanese companies such as
Seiko,
Citizen, and
Casio which embraced the new electronic technology.
[3][4][5]
Quartz
movement of the Seiko Astron, 1969
The quartz crisis took place amid the global
Digital Revolution (or "Third Industrial Revolution") which was gaining momentum during the late 1950s.
[6][7] The crisis started with the
Astron, the world's first quartz watch, which was introduced by Seiko in December 1969.
[3][4][8][9] The key advances included replacing the mechanical or electromechanical
movement with a quartz clock movement as well as replacing
analog displays with
digital displays such as
LED displays and later
liquid-crystal displays (LCDs).
[3][4][9] In general, quartz timepieces are much more accurate than mechanical timepieces, in addition to having a much lower sale price.
[3][4][url=https://clickpix.org/image/E7DDCAB5-EDDC-4344-85BB-A638564114B0.H1HrLk]
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