Smart Horology from Alpina

It was only a matter of time before Swiss watchmakers entered the smartwatch game, and the adventurous brand became one of the first to do so. Alpina made waves at Baselworld 2015, when it introduced its Horological Smartwatch, a finely-crafted timepiece which makes use of smartwatch technology. The cutting-edge timepiece made its debut among a range of other fascinating novelties which pay credence to the brand’s legacy of sports watches in the diving, alpine and automatic ladies watch categories

In an interview with ‘Day & Night’, Alpina’s CEO, Guido Benedini, revealed more about the ground-breaking smartwatch and the brand’s other new releases. He also discussed Alpina’s incredible business progress over the past few years, looked back on a storied history which inspired the brand’s most recent creations, and spoke about Alpina’s relationship with parent company Frederique Constant.

Can you tell me about the Alpiner 4 Flyback Chronograph that you have just launched?
The development of this timepiece was initiated four years ago. Creating a chronograph movement involves significant complexity; not many people realise that it is more complex to craft a chronograph movement than, for example, a minute repeater. So our watchmaker maker worked for four years on each step involved in the development of the movement, testing of the components, and ensuring its assembly, until the final innovative product was completed.

Alpina is more renowned for its pilot’s watches, this year there has been a slight deviation, the timepieces can be categorised as being sportier. What influenced the change?
Yes, it’s true, Alpina is very well-known for its aviation watches, owing to its historic link to producing watches for many of the air forces in Europe during the middle of the last century; but Alpina also has a strong legacy in diving watches, and it has also traditionally crafted timepieces for alpine use. For the past two years, we have been reviving and ensuring development in these two segments. This year we are also introducing ladies watches with our new Comtesse Collection. Alpina also has a rich history in developing ladies watches, which is perhaps something that people are not aware of today.

What has the feedback been like on the latest ladies watches?
I must say, from the trade, the response has been very good, because consumers have been waiting for this product. In our price segment, especially for sporty brands, there isn’t a lot of ladies automatic timepieces on offer – so we have really uncovered an untapped market there.   

For the past couple of years, Alpina has been getting a very big push from the parent company Frederique Constant; how much of progress has that resulted in?
Altogether, in the past two and a half years, we have been growing by two-hundred per cent. 2014 versus 2013, we grew by sixty-seven per cent, and in the first few months of 2015, we have experienced a growth of thirty-eight per cent compared to the same period last year. We are experiencing, I would say, very healthy and sustained growth.

Since both brands are situated pretty much in the same Manufacture, how much of collaboration has taken place between Frederique Constant and Alpina?
There is quite a considerable amount of collaboration because we, of course, share the production infrastructure, we share the product development infrastructure, but each brand has its own identity, with Alpina concentrating more on the sporty watches. While we do share the infrastructure, we develop the brand and the products independently. This is a winning combination for retail because we offer two uniquely positioned brands in terms of design and communication, within the same price bracket. It gives the retailers more variety with both the elegant, classic segment, and the sporty sophistication segment.

What are your aspirations for the Horological Smartwatch?
With our vision of the Smartwatch, which is a real luxury Swiss timepiece with connective functionality, we are launching a new product category, as a whole. What that means for Alpina is that we represent all the features of a luxury sports watch, including one-hundred metres water-resistance, which for a smartwatch is a big number; because it measures your activity, we wanted people to be able to go anywhere with this watch; it has all of the horological features, such as a stainless steel case, screw-down case back, sapphire crystal, applied indexes, and more than two years of battery life. So we wanted to make a seamless transition from the way you wear and use a sports watch, to the way you wear and use a smartwatch. This, I think, again demonstrates the inventiveness of the brand, remember Alpina was the inventor of the modern sports watch, and with this we are the inventors of the horological sports smartwatch. It is a very important innovation from our company, which we started developing just three years ago.