Swatch is a Swiss watch company founded in 1983 by Ernst Thomke, Elmar Mock, and Jacques Müller.

[1] Swatch began development in the early 1980s under the leadership of the then ETA SA's CEO Ernst Thomke with a small team of watch engineers led by Elmar Mock and Jacques Müller.

[2] Conceived as a standard timekeeper in plastic, Franz Sprecher,[3] a marketing consultant hired by Thomke to give the project an outsider's consideration, sought to create a fashionable line of watches.

Swatch was originally intended to re-capture entry level market share lost by Swiss manufacturers of mechanical watches and the subsequent growth of Japanese companies such as Seiko and Citizen in the 1960s and 1970s.

[6][7] These Swatch models of wristwatches with a quartz movement are additionally equipped with a near-field communication (NFC) chip to accommodate contactless payment.

As an improved second generation, Swatch introduced the model Pay for the Chinese market in July 2017.

Unlike the Bellamy, Pay can be programmed and activated in Swatch shops using a Cloud Computing service operated by several Chinese banks.

"[9] The movement uses 51 components anchored to a central screw with automatic winding and a 90-hour power reserve – and is 100% Swiss made on a 20-metre-long (65 ft) automated assembly line in clean-room conditions, without human intervention.

[10] The movement is permanently sealed in its case with structural adhesive securing both the acrylic crystal over the dial and the case back, making it invulnerable to environmental conditions including moisture, dust or foreign objects – and also making it maintenance free – i.e., impossible to service.

[18] The collection sold out internationally on its release date, with lines formed at most Swatch boutiques where it was carried.

[23] Swatch filed a lawsuit against the Home Ministry and the Malaysian governement, challenging the legality of the seizure in July 2023.

[25] In a September 2023 interview, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said that the raid was 'excessive', but defended Malaysia's current stance on the LGBT issue.

[26] In November 2024, the Malaysian High Court ruled that the raid was conducted without a warrant therefore was deemed illegal.