The year 2011 marks the 130th anniversary of SEIKO. My great-grandfather and the founder of SEIKO, Kintaro Hattori, established his company in Kyobashi, Tokyo in 1881. Today, 130 years later, we have chosen to mark this anniversary by launching, here at Baselworld 2011, a powerful new SEIKO collection that honors the tradition he created but which also builds a solid platform for the future of the SEIKO brand worldwide.

Kintaro Hattori had a vision for SEIKO. He wanted SEIKO to be “Always one step ahead of the others” and it was this idea that drove him to create Japan’s first ever wrist watch, “Laurel” in 1913 and to create a company that was able to master every aspect of the watchmaker’s art and become the true manufacture that SEIKO is today.

The same vision that inspired my great-grandfather 130 years ago has inspired the 2011 SEIKO collection. The undoubted centerpiece is the Credor Spring Drive Minute Repeater, a timepiece that only SEIKO could create and which combines our state of the art Spring Drive caliber with a new interpretation of the traditional minute repeater method of marking time with both hands and sound.

Our company’s heritage is also honored in the new Grand Seiko limited edition collection. The design pays faithful homage to the very first Grand Seiko, but it looks to the future with an entirely new hand-winding caliber of great distinction. Alongside these masterpieces, we are proud to present a new Ananta Diver’s watch with an automatic chronograph caliber, a limited edition piece that celebrates our 130th anniversary in a distinctively Japanese style. Both Ananta and Grand Seiko are now presented to the market on a worldwide basis, and will be offered in the ever-growing number of SEIKO Boutiques and SEIKO image stores later in 2011.

Our 2011 collection also includes a new Sportura range that takes all that SEIKO has learned in sports timing during the past five decades and incorporates it into a modern sports watch that expresses the true dynamic spirit of our brand. The new Sportura will be at the heart of SEIKO’s global communication in 2011 and beyond.

I choose to believe that Kintaro Hattori would be proud and delighted to see the collection that we have created in celebration of his achievements. It is my sincere hope that you will find it a fitting tribute to the 130th anniversary of the foundation of SEIKO and to his vision of “Always one step ahead of the others”.