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Times history

Timex evolved from three 19th century clockmakers.   Two Norwegian immigranted to the United States, shipbuilder Thomas Olsen and engineer Joakim Lehmkuhl, both of whom fled Norway after the Germans invaded their country in 1940. They purchased Waterbury Clock Company when it was almost bankrupt. They founded Timex Inc. in 1941.
The first Timex watches rolled off the assembly line in 1949 and soon became known for their dependability. During the time, only jewelers sold watched and they typically higher prices by 50 percent. To keep its prices low, Timex insisted on only a 30 percent markup, most jewelers did not want to sell Timex watches. The company opted to bypass the jewelers, instead they decide to sell the watches directly to consumer outlets including pharmacy, hardware stores, and even tobacco stands. During the 1950s and 1960 the company had built a distribution network that reached nearly 250,000 outlets. By 1961, sales were up to $71 million, with after tax profits of $2.9 million.

The company advertise heavily to get its name out there and to sell the dependability of its watches, Timex relied on the visual impact of television. The phrase "takes a licking and keeps on ticking" became nationally know, by the late 1960s Timex watches accounted for about half of U.S. watch sales.

In 1970 Timex had record profits of $27 million on sales of $200 million. the firm started facing intense competition in a changing market. Although few companies producing watches in the same price range as Timex. Timex began producing digital watches in 1972, but they did not move as fast as the competition. In 1974 the company's net income fell by one-third to $8.7 million on sales of $348 million. In1976 the price of digital watches had fallen into the price range of the company's mechanical watches. Timex began losing market share.
Their major competitors were Texas Instruments, Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp.. both companies had more...