Citizen Watch Co., Ltd

Citizen Watch Co., Ltd.
シチズン時計株式会社

Head office of the Citizen Watch holding company in Tokyo
Formerly called	Shokosha Watch Research Institute (before May 28, 1930)
Type	Public (KK)
Traded as	: Nikkei 225 Component
Founded	1918; 99 years ago (1918)
Headquarters	Nishitōkyō, Tokyo, Japan
Key people	Makoto Umehara (President)
Products	Watches and parts, Information equipment and parts, Electronic equipment and parts, Industrial machinery and equipment, Jewelry
Revenue	¥252.5 billion $2.72 billion (FY 2010)
Operating income	¥7.2 billion $77.7 million (FY 2010)
Net income	¥3.5 billion $37.9 million (FY 2010)
Number of employees	18,459 (2013)
Website	citizen.co.jp

¥252.5 billion

Citizen Watch Co., Ltd. (シチズン時計株式会社, Shichizun tokei Kabushiki-gaisha) is the core company of a Japanese global corporate group based in Tokyo, Japan. The company was founded as Shokosha Watch Research Institute in 1918. It is known as the manufacturer of Cincom precision lathe machine tools and Citizen watches. The trade name originated from a pocket watch Citizen sold in 1924. It is one of the world's largest producers of watches.

Eco-Drive watches use a battery recharged by a solar panel hidden under the watch face. In the rare and discontinued Eco-Drive Duo series, the solar power was supplemented by an automatic quartz power source. One early model, called the Citizen Vitality, used the watch hands to drive a small electric generator, but was discontinued following complaints that the device could explode and cause wrist injuries. There was also an Eco-Drive Thermo model that exploited temperature differentials between the wearer's skin temperature and ambient temperature to recharge the battery. However, the only Eco-Drive system described on the Citizen Watch official web site is the one depending solely on light to recharge. Features similar to the Eco-Drive have been developed by other manufacturers like Casio and Junghans. All Citizen Eco-Drive movements are made in Japan but the case or the bracelet may also be made in China.

CITIZEN JY8034-58E

Some watches, such as the Skyhawk A-T line feature radio-controlled timekeeping. The watches can synchronize with radio clocks in Japan, North America, and Europe and will automatically select the correct frequency for doing so based upon location of home time zone. The watch actually tracks two time zones—home and world—but synchronizes to the 'home' zone. When traveling, the user may swap the 'home' and 'world' zones—thereby enabling proper time signal reception on a different continent while retaining the other time. The day, date, and daylight saving time settings are also set automatically when the watch is synchronized. These features are comparable to the synchronization with atomic clocks found in Casio Wave Ceptor watches.

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Wikipedia