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SEIKO in Numbers

The story of SEIKO is the story of a company unafraid to dream and with the will and resources to take on the seemingly impossible. Throughout its 127 years of history, SEIKO has mastered four timekeeping technologies:
Spring Drive, Mechanical, Kinetic and Quartz.

Because SEIKO has developed the highest level of skill in all these four aspects of the watchmaker’s art, each new development in one area opens up new possibilities in other areas. The interaction of these skills has given birth to new dreams and made their realization a reality.

The SEIKO story is a story of technological development, synergies best told in numbers.

  • 290
  • 1/400
  • 1278
  • 6425
  • 1
  • 1969
  • 1986
  • 60000
  • 3

In 1959 the “magic lever” was developed by SEIKO and became the heart of the Gyro Marvel self-winding watch containing Cal. 290. This vital component efficiently transforms the movement of oscillating weight into the energy that drives the watch. No matter which way the weight swings, it is turned into the one-way rotation that winds the mainspring. For nearly 50 years it has prevailed in our markets, and the technology is also at the heart of the SEIKO Spring Drive launched in 2005.

QC-951 was the first quartz chronometer to be reduced to 1/400th of the size of two filing cabinets previously required. Intended for the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964, and exhibited at observatory competitions during the course of its development, it was the first portable quartz timekeeper created by SEIKO. 1964 was, therefore, the year when highly accurate timekeeping became a practical reality in daily life.

1,278 is the number of stopwatches and other timekeeping devices supplied by SEIKO for the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964. The enthusiasm and dedication of SEIKO engineers ensured their performance without a single timing error and laid the groundwork for SEIKO’s later remarkable advances.

SEIKO has been continuing research and development of divers' watches since SEIKO's first divers' watch was released in 1965, and it is trusted worldwide by discerning divers as being the most reliable.

SEIKO was awarded the “best mechanical wrist chronometer” in Geneva.The score was the record high in the history of the competition. The competition regulators also attained record scores. This feat has solidified SEIKO’s leading position in the industry.

1969 was the year when the SEIKO Astron, the world’s first quartz watch, went on sale. The accuracy previously sought only in observatory competitions was now within the reach of everybody. It is one of the most epoch-making products in SEIKO’s entire history. It was given the IEEE milestone award in 2004. The design of the SEIKO quartz watch is now the standard for the industry. The technology and devices developed along the way have had much broader applications in products as varied as mobile phones, computers and even digital cameras.

Since then, Kinetic has been one of SEIKO's platform calibers along with Mechanical and Quartz and at the same time it has been very important basis for developing SEIKO’s world leading Spring Drive technology.

60,000 rpm is how many revolutions the rotor of the generator driven by the oscillating weight in the Kinetic watches has to make per minute. It’s turning far faster than the 4,000 to 20,000 rpm of a Formula 1 racing-car engine.

SEIKO’s proprietary three-pointed hammer, a one-layered piece, resets all three hands of the mechanical chronograph caliber 8R at once to zero. The gap between the hammer center and guide axis as well as the perfect positioning of the hammer operating lever axis are the secret of this structure impossible up to now.

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