A Brief History of the Orient Watch Company

Orient Watch was formally established in July 13th, 1950 in Tokyo. However, the history of Orient Watch really dates back to 1901, when Shogoro Yoshida, the founder of Orient, opened a wholesale watch store in Ueno, Japan.

Orient has specialized in mechanical and self-winding watches since its inception. Orient makes its own automatic movements in-house. Once part of the big three watch manufactures (Seiko and Citizen being the other two)in Japan, things took a turn for the worse in the 1970’s when quartz watches were the rage. Orient stuck to is guns and continued to produce mechanical watches while Seiko and Citizen primarily switched to quartz movements.

Today, Seiko owns a controlling interest (52%)in Orient. Orient continues to manufacture and design their own mechanical movements. Orient has manufacturing facilities in Japan, Singapore, and Brazil. They offer a wide range of watch designs and styles, including quartz, mechanical, and light powered (similar to Citizen’s Eco-Drive line).

What differentiates Orient from other watch companies is really the fact that Orient has always been focusing on making its mechanical movements better and more reliable. And, they are very affordable. To find a watch company that uses in-house movements selling its watches at prices that well within the budgets of most people is truly amazing.