Weekend Briefing: How Breitling aims to compete against the other big watchmaking groups

Last week, Breitling announced an acquisition of Universal Genève and a plan to go up against other big watch groups like Swatch and Citizen. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Glossy Podcast for interviews with fashion industry leaders and Week in Review episodes, and the Glossy Beauty Podcast for interviews from the beauty industry. –Danny Parisi, sr. fashion reporter

Breitling aims to compete against the big watchmaking groups

Last week, the Swiss watch company Breitling made its first big acquisition. On Tuesday, it announced that it had purchased another Swiss watch brand, Universal Genève. The latter, despite having a long history dating back to 1894, had mostly fallen by the wayside in the face of competition from other Swiss titans like Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Omega and Patek Phillippe. Breitling hopes to revitalize the brand, bringing back classic watch models from its archive and updating it for the modern watch enthusiast.

Universal Genève will be run separately from Breitling, with a unique team, rather than being folded into the larger company. It’s a sign that Breitling is interested in becoming a larger player in the watch space, evolving from a single brand to a watchmaking group. That puts it on track to compete directly with companies like Citizen Group, which owns six watch brands, or Swatch Group which owns 17.

Continue reading this article on glossy.co. Sign up for Glossy newsletters to get the latest on the business of beauty, fashion and pop culture.