In this Orient house series first article, we highlighted the Japanese brand’s strategy for its entry-level models which made an excellent impression in Japan and abroad. We continue our series today, by introducing you two brands highlighted as the big sisters of the Orient watches, whose ambitions and quality are great by getting closer to excellence…
If you stumble upon this page without reading the first article, discover the first episode by clicking on this link: Orient, the best quality-price ratio for a watch?
THE FOLLOWING, IN THE FORM OF A STAR
Mr. Miyagawa’s team quickly understood the importance for his firm to quickly move upmarket. He founds the Orient Star brand just a few years after the Orient House creation. Watches with more advanced mechanisms, often involving a manual and automatic winding movement, accompanied by the stop-seconds function.
Better finishes, significant attention given to details, these timepieces dedicated to Japanese well-off class quickly became a worldwide success reinforcing the credit granted to the Japanese brand.
A ROYAL AMBITION
In the Seiko’s supreme range image, the Grand Seiko, the Orient team aims to create a watches range worthy of high-end watchmaking which can compete with the best existing Swiss.
The “Orient Star Royal” was born in 1959. Elegant design, boxes fineness, top quality designed by the best craftsmen of the brand, power reserve often greater than 50 hours … The products leaving the factory appear as a UFO in a Japanese industry, long dominated by Quartz Watches …
Concerned with confusion between its high-end models and Luxury range, the company renamed its collection “Orient Star Royal” in “Royal Orient” in 2004 and reworked, for the occasion, a more refined and distinguished logo.
Despite all the brand efforts to put forward a “Japan Made” quality, the Royal Orient models whose sales price starts at ¥ 150,000, i.e € 1,200, are still struggling to find a place in a global luxury market where “Swiss Made” still dominates the watch market.
By creating 3 products different lines and by mainly focusing on quality, the Orient Watch house has succeeded in just over half a century to become one of the world’s biggest records in the watches manufacture with EUR 72 millions of watches sold in 2014.
