Luxury Watch Brand Christopher Ward – Calibre SH21 Movement
Wanting to break the rules of the luxury watch industry, British watchmaker brand Christopher Ward recently announced it will introduced its own in-house watch movement – Calibre SH21
Christopher Ward was establish in 2006 and sent a direct challenge to the mega, $23 billion Swiss watch industry by developing its own movement. The announcement was perfectly summarized by the iconic co-founder of the British luxury watch brand – Chris Ward, “probably the most significant watch industry development by a British brand in the past 50 years”.
Christopher Ward first broke the mold when they became the world’s first pure online luxury watch brand. It was a new paradigm and direct challenge to the traditional Swiss watch industry. Christopher Ward sells more mechanical watches compared to other brands that are based in the UK. About 40% of the company’s sales are overseas with the U.S. being the top market.
After a merger with Synergies Horlogères, the new watch movement which is basically the engine of a watch began to move forward. Since the Swatch Group, which is the luxury watch industry’s biggest manufacturer of movements sets the industry supply, Christopher Ward felt it needed to break away and create for flexibility. The new Calibre SH21 now allows them more independence.
Chris Ward was quoted, “Today, we are advancing to a new level of independence that strengthens the future growth of the business and enables us to develop a family of movements, the first of which is the beautiful C9 Harrison 5 Day Automatic, housing the Calibre SH21, which we also launched today.”
The above photo is the new C9 Harrison 5 Day Automatic luxury watch, that incorporates the first in-house movement, Calibre SH21.
