Citizen

The institute finished its pocket watch in December 1924, when most watches sold in Japan were still imported. Shinpei Goto, the mayor of Tokyo, named it CITIZEN, and in May 1930 the name passed to the new Citizen Watch Co., Ltd.^1, 2, 8

A wristwatch followed in 1931 and the Tanashi factory in 1936. In 1941 the company began making machine tools, a business that still runs beside its watches.^1, 8

After the war Citizen sold a calendar watch from 1952, began exporting wristwatches in 1955 and in 1960 signed an import-export agreement with the American Bulova Watch Company. Its X-8 electronic watch appeared in 1966.¹

Two materials came to define the brand. Citizen says the watch it introduced in 1970 was the first with a titanium case, and it later developed Super Titanium, titanium hardened at the surface by its own Duratect process.⁴

By the mid-1970s battery quartz watches were the norm in Japan, and Citizen set out to end battery changes, a project it ties to the 1973 oil crisis. After a prototype in 1974, it released the Crystron Solar Cell, a light-powered analogue watch, in 1976.^1, 5

The solar watch improved step by step: by 1986 a model ran 200 hours on a full charge, and in 1995 a lithium battery stretched that to six months. Citizen had coined the name Eco-Drive in 1994 for watches that run on any light, indoor or out, and in 1996 Eco-Drive received Japan’s Eco Mark.^1, 5

Citizen’s movements also go to other brands. Miyota dates itself to a movement factory Citizen built at Miyota in Nagano in 1959 and its own name to 1980, calls itself an integrated movement maker, from components to final inspection, and says it makes all its movements in Japan; Citizen set up a division to sell watch components in 1982. How those movements reached Hong Kong’s assemblers from 1979 is told on the Hong Kong page.^1, 3, 9

The makers were drawn closer to the parent. In 2005 five consolidated companies, Miyota among them, became wholly owned subsidiaries; the parent was a holding company, Citizen Holdings, from 2007 until 2016, when it took the Citizen Watch name again; and Citizen Watch Manufacturing was set up in 2013.^1, 8

From 2008 Citizen bought other makers. Bulova, the New York company it had traded with since 1960, became a subsidiary in January 2008; Prothor Holding of La Chaux-de-Fonds, owner of the movement maker La Joux-Perret, the parts maker Prototec and the Arnold & Son brand, in April 2012; and Frederique Constant Holding of Geneva, with the Frederique Constant, Alpina and DeMonaco brands, in July 2016.^{1, 6, 10, 11, 12}

Europa Star’s report of 2016 says that Citizen wanted La Joux-Perret mainly for its mechanical movements, and to secure movements for Bulova after ETA moved to restrict its sales to outside firms; the magazine counts seven foreign brands added in eight years.¹²

Citizen now calls itself one of the few companies able to do every part of watchmaking in house, from components to assembly, sales and service, with movement works in Japan (Miyota) and Switzerland (La Joux-Perret), the latter supplying brands inside and outside the group. Watches gave 177.1 billion of its 316.8 billion yen of sales in the year to March 2025, the report says.¹³