Longines
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| Member of the Swatch group | |
| Industry | Watch manufacturing |
| Founded | 1832 |
| Headquarters | Saint-Imier, Switzerland |
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Key people
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Walter von Känel, President |
| Products | Wristwatches, timing devices/systems |
| Revenue | €70.3 million (2009) |
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Number of employees
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340 (2009) |
| Parent | The Swatch Group Ltd. |
| Website | www.longines.com |
Longines (French pronunciation: [lɔ̃ʒin], LAWN-zheen) is a luxury watch company based in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. Founded by Auguste Agassiz in 1832, it is owned by the Swatch Group. Its winged hourglass logo is the oldest registered trademark for a watchmaker.
Longines is known for its "Aviators" range of watches. A company director was a friend of Charles Lindbergh; after his transatlantic flight, Lindbergh designed a pilot watch to help with air navigation. Built to his specifications, it is still produced today.
Longines provided timers used at the first modern Olympics in 1896. In 1899, a Longines watch went to the North Pole with Arctic explorer Luigi Amedeo of Savoy. It was the first to use automatic timekeeping for the Federal Gymnastics at Basel in 1912. Today, Longines sells sport watches and chronographs.
Based in Saint-Imier since 1832, the Compagnie des Montres Longines Francillon S.A. was among the world’s leading watch companies. In 2007, Longines had its 175th anniversary. The brand evolved from a comptoir to a full-fledged manufacturing operation and then back down to an établisseur today, since the early 1980s, as a Swatch Group company.
The Longines’ story began in 1832, when Auguste Agassiz, brother of naturalist Louis Agassiz, found a job in the hamlet of Saint-Imier, joining Comptoir Horloger Raiguel Jeune (a trader of watch parts), in 1833 taking over the business when he and two of his associates set up a company named Comptoir Raiguel Jeue & Cie. The venture was run on the then-prevailing business model based on piecework by people making or processing watch parts in their own homes for the account of a jobber who delivered the blanks, or rough parts, and picked up and paid for the finished ones. The company soon found ways to sell its timepieces in distant markets, not least in the Americas.
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Wikipedia