Time has not run out on the age-old wristwatch, as major Japanese timepiece makers have found an increasingly lucrative market even amid the growing popularity of smartwatches.

They have tapped into a worldwide craving for luxury watches over the past few years, which come with high price tags of a whopping tens of millions of yen (hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Citizen Watch Co. rolled out new models from its high-end The Citizen line on June 13. While a mechanical version will cost 880,000 yen ($6,115), a limited edition model numbering only 200 units will be priced at 1.045 million yen.

Expecting stable demand and market growth, Citizen had announced plans to pour resources into mechanical watches. The Citizen is marketed primarily in Japan but will go on sale overseas in earnest from next year.

“The market is growing on a broad scale,” said a Citizen public relations official. “It is thus worthy of our attention."

Citizen is actively working toward rolling out other upscale lines, too.

Among such offerings are not only the Campanola model that shows constellations on the dial panel in real time “as if outer space is pictured on it” but also the super-thin Eco-Drive One line, whose movement measures a paltry 1 millimeter in thickness.

Behind the move is the company’s difficulty pitching watches ranging in price from 50,000 yen to 200,000 yen.

These so-called “popularly priced” products experienced sluggish sales owing to smartwatches’ increasing presence as well as declining consumer spending during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In hopes of improving patrons’ average spending and its brand value, Citizen introduced more costly models.

According to its fiscal 2022 financial results, domestic sales of those high-end models were up by more than 20 percent year on year.

Analyzing the market conditions for luxury watches, Yoshitaka Oji, a managing director of Citizen, said “simply stressing how advanced our technologies are cannot resonate” with consumers.

“Products solely of high quality do not sell well,” Oji said.

Oji noted sharing each offering’s concept and background story with patrons is essential.

“Emotional values, including exciting features, must be conveyed with other information,” said Oji.

Seiko Watch Corp. released a new model priced at 20 million yen through 30 million yen every year under its upscale Grand Seiko line for the past four years.

Although some models are available for around 200,000 yen to 300,000 yen, a particularly sought-after offering marked by a white birch forest-like design comes with a hefty price tag exceeding 1 million yen.

Hitting the shelves in October last year, the Kodo mechanical model required a decade for its development and is characterized by transparent dial through which many layers of components can be seen in their synchronized movements. 

All 20 units made available throughout the globe for 44 million yen, including tax, were quickly snatched up by watch lovers in and outside Japan.

Seiko embarked on its shift to luxury watches in 2017. Seiko surged in popularity on social media, making waves in particular among young people in North America as a “brand unearthed by ourselves.”

According to Chrono24, an e-commerce site specializing in high-end watches, Seiko rose from seventh place in 2019 to fourth in 2020 and third in 2021 in the popularity ranking based on online search volumes and purchase requests worldwide.

It ranked third in 2022, just behind Switzerland’s Rolex and Omega.

Luxury models are gradually becoming in vogue reportedly in Japan as well, whereas that type of product was formerly purchased mainly as retirement gifts for those in their workplaces.

Seiko is stepping up efforts from this past spring to make directly run outlets easier for shoppers to visit likewise, such as adorning the sales corner of Grand Seiko with shiny wooden fittings.

“We will be making our stores more attractive for a wider range of customers,” said a publicity representative of Seiko.

An estimate by the Japan Clock & Watch Association shows wristwatch production in 2022 across the globe increased by 13.7 percent to 1.09 billion units from the previous year.

Japanese manufacturers shipped out 52.2 million watches in 2022, about the same as a year earlier. But their shipment value swelled 12 percent to 255.8 billion yen.

Masaharu Nabata, editor-in-chief of the dedicated watch magazine Gressive, recounted why pricey timepieces have become a draw.

“Wealthy individuals found it difficult to travel abroad in the coronavirus crisis and sought an alternative way to spend their unused money,” said Nabata. “Wristwatches produced by makers both in Japan and overseas picked up an especially avid following among other products, since they are tiny enough to save space.”

Nabata provided future prospects for the market.

“Offerings of Japanese companies are highly acclaimed for their exceptional quality,” he said. “A key to success lies in whether they will be able to further develop something unique to Japan from the perspectives of both design and functions.”