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SCMP Reporter

HONG KONG WATCH manufacturers are producing  for some international fashion brands as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) but few have broken ranks to establish themselves as  brands in  their own right. Voila is one of them.

Having carved a niche overseas, the Hong Kong brand was finally wooing the local market, which had traditionally sneered at Hong Kong-made watches.

Intertime F.E. Ltd, which manufactures and markets the brand,  appointed a Hong Kong distributor earlier this year. Its latest creation, Grand Cruz, and other designs from its 10 lines are now  sold in 20  local outlets, including Lane Crawford's Times Square and Ocean Centre malls.

The company was an  OEM  producing watches for fashion and lifestyle brands such as YSL, Wrangler, Disney, Giordano and Ted Lapidus before launching the Voila brand 2? years ago.

The bulk of Hong Kong's watch and clock exports  are from OEMs but suppliers are increasingly focusing on original design manufacturing.

In the 1990s, OEM for other brands  moved from Hong Kong to  the mainland.

'If it's not there yet it will eventually go there. This is where I would like to see Hong Kong companies take the lead from France and Switzerland and start branding,' said Roger Khemlani, Intertime's creative director. 'We're in a better position because we have the best trading environment and tax structure.'

The Voila brand began to make its mark only after the company took a risk and  built the brand around the 'wow factor'.

'In the beginning, I was brainwashed by distributors that the products had to be inexpensive and conservative. I launched some ordinary watches and they took a long while to sell,' Mr Khemlani said.

Since then, designs that previous licensors thought would not work - such as the Voila Op-La line with slap-on straps - became popular. Last year, it wowed international distributors with an innovative design of a triple time zone watch sporting a watch face in the shape of the number eight.

'Each brand should have its DNA. Ours is the wow factor. We are here to shock,' he said.

He said the most important thing for making the brand work was building a network of distributors. 'If people can't see your watch in the stores, it's like winking in the dark,' he said.

'The pocket doesn't have to be very deep for building a watch brand from scratch,' he said. The key thing was registering each design in Switzerland and in the countries where the watch was made and on sale. 'Having the trademark registered in Switzerland offers the most efficient infringement adjudication and it also elevates the perception of the brand,' he said.

In the early years, the company made mistakes in trying to save money and not taking out trademarks on its designs in all necessary markets, handing out distributorships without signing contracts and taking up distributors in eastern Europe which did nothing.

Hong Kong-made labels still have a fair way to go before they can catch up with  Swiss brands, although Hong Kong is the world's third-largest exporter of precious jewellery and watches. Hong Kong's exports of watches and clocks in 2003 exceeded $41 billion, compared with Switzerland's watch and timepieces exports of 10.17 billion Swiss francs ($68.31 billion) in the same year.

Mr Khemlani said Swiss brands were sought after because no one was challenging them. 'The Swiss are buying watch parts in Asia using Swiss movements and assembling them in small shops in Switzerland. We are using Swiss movements and assembling the watches in Hong Kong.

'The Swiss-made label is just that - a label. Customers  pay 10 times for that label  compared with what they  pay in the Far East.'

Voila comes up with 10 to 12 designs a year,  but only two to three  are produced. Mr Khemlani believes quartz instead of mechanical watches will continue to be the mainstay for the company. 'Nine out of 10 watches sold in general are for women. Women like to change watches. It's a fashion statement. Women must have quartz watches because they don't wear the same watch all the time  and it's expensive to have one of those watch winding  boxes,' he  said.



Watchmakers in Hong Kong find their time has come