In the mid-seventies, the Swiss watch industry was in the midst of its worst crisis ever. But the event that marked the upturn in the industry`s fortunes was the founding of SMH, the Swiss Corporation for Microelectronics and Watchmaking Industries. And its answer to the crisis was Swatch - a slim plastic watch with only 51 components (instead of the usual 91 parts or more) that combined top quality with a highly affordable price against Japanese competition. It first went on sale in 1983. Since this time, it has gone on to become the most successful wristwatch of all time. The Swatch Group, the parent company, is the largest and most dynamic watch company in the world today and all of that -is thanks to the first $30 plastic watch - vision of the co-founder, Chairman and Delegate of the Board of Directors of the Swatch Group - Nicolas G. Hayek.

N.G. Hayek played a decisive role in the recovery of the Swatch Group with its watch brands Swatch, Breguet, Blancpain, Hatot, Glashutte Original/Union, Jaquet-Droz, Léon Hatot, Omega, Longines, Rado, Tissot, Clavin Klein, Certina, Mido, Hamilton, Pierre Balmain, Flik Flak, and Endura. The strategies he developed in the early 1980s led to the success of the entire Swiss watch industry and regained its leading position worldwide since 1984, through the supply of watch movements and components to the whole Swiss watch industry.

For many years, new developments have been taking place alongside the standard Swatch watch in plastic-from Irony (the metal Swatch) to the Swatch SKIN Chrono (the world`s thinnest chronograph) to Swatch Snowpass (a watch with a built-in access control function which can be used as a ski pass at many ski resorts throughout the world), and Swatch Beat (featuring the revolutionary Internet Time).

Outstanding technical capabilities and advances in the fields of science and technology were already proven by Swatch during its role as the Official Timekeeper in several Olympic Games and Ski and Snowboard World Cup competitions.