Along with neighboring Geneva companies Audemars Piguet, Girard-Perregaux, Patek Philippe and Rolex, Universal is internationally regarded for its style of craftsmanship as a manufacture d'horlogerie.

Started and briefly based in Le Locle, co-founder Ulysse Perret would relocate Universal to Geneva in 1919, solidifying the company's status as a Genève brand.

Although Universal began only as a manufacturer and retailer of cases, crowns, dials and movements, the company whilst under Perret and Descombes patented the brand's first 24-hour indication watch.

[3] By 1925, the duo created the brand's first patented self-winding timepiece called the Auto Rem,[2] an octagon-shaped men's wristwatch with lozenge-styled hands and a 15-jewel movement.

In addition to its automatic "smooth sweep" timekeeping, the Compax was also equipped with a built-in stopwatch which made it a suitable device for soldiers during training exercises and full-fledged combat operations.

While the company continued to use silver, gold, platinum and diamonds for its dials, cases, bands and bracelets, the switch to quartz oscillators was a cost-efficient alternative to automatic complications, which were considerably more expensive and more time-consuming to produce, and could not compete with the mass-produced growth of electronic movements.

Since the innovation of quartz technology had originated in Japan, Universal began to focus most of its attention on the Asian watch market, since a significant portion of company revenue was already centered in Hong Kong.

[16] During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Universal was owned by New York-based Bulova, an acquisition which expanded the manufacture's fame in Japanese and North American markets,[17] and led to stylistic collaborations with other watch or jewelry firms such as Tiffany's, Cartier SA and Movado.

As of 2011, Universal is an active member of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, maintains three offices in Switzerland and oversees La Chaux-de-Fonds-based watchmaker Cyma.

[18] It was announced on 12th December 2023, that Stelux Holdings had sold the intellectual property of Universal Genève to Partners Group, the majority owner of Breitling SA.

Although Hermann Göring owned many different brands of watches, the Reichsmarschall had given his Universal Genève Compax to Nuremberg Trials guard Lt. Jack Wheelis the night before his scheduled execution.

[27] While Wheelis' family maintained that the gift was a friendly gesture, historians have long attributed the wristwatch as being a bribe for the cyanide pill Göring ingested to escape the hangman.

[28] Fernando Aubel, a former Chilean Air Force General (1978–1990) under Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship, recalled receiving a Universal Genève chronometer wristwatch as a young man and still wearing it at the present, according to a personal memoir.

[32] Rock and roll luminary Elvis Presley owned a 14k gold Universal Genève dress watch which he gifted to his personal doctor in Las Vegas in the 1970s.