Technos (watches)

Technos is a trademark for a range of watches. First registered in 1924 in Switzerland, after World War II it has significant market share, especially in Japan and Brazil. Like many other Swiss watch brands, it was almost swept into oblivion by the onslaught of the Japanese watch industry in the mid-1970s. The brand is now Brazilian-owned.

The company was founded 1900, under the name M. Gunzinger-Hug, by Melchior Gunzinger, in Welschenrohr, in the Swiss Jura Mountains, Canton of Solothurn, Switzerland.

Melchior’s son, Joseph Gunzinger took over the small watch manufacturing facility in 1920 and changed the name to Gunzinger Bros Ltd.

In 1924 he registered the trademark "Technos" and started manufacturing and exporting watches under that name. Technos became a very successful brand and the company began to increase its manufacturing capacity, to become a sizeable company and almost the sole employer in the area: in 1970, when Josef Gunzinger sold the company to General Watch Co it employed 450 people and exported worldwide, especially to Japan & Brazil.

Soon however, with the introduction of Japanese watches Technos started losing market share, and by 1976, only the Japanese market was still managing to provide some orders.

In 1977 the company was transferred to Biel/Bienne in Montres Edox SA premises. Both companies were reorganized under a new joint management, to fight for survival, and in 1980 Certina was also integrated in the ad hoc structure.

In 1982 the company was sold, with all rights to the "Technos" trademark, to its long-time Japanese importer Heiwado & Co, Tokyo, Japan (see ). Its new owners granted a limited licence to use the trademark Technos to the importing company in Brazil, allowing them to design and manufacture their own Technos branded watches.

In 1995, the company sold the rights to the Technos brand throughout South America and the Caribbean to Technos Relógios S.A., followed in 2002 by the sale of the remaining worldwide rights.

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