The Breitling Watch Source Forums

This is the official Japanese website for the Breitling brand. Why am I noting it here? It has a multitude of features that the English website does not have. However, many of the titles are in English and you should be able to navigate the page just fine. Particularly interesting is the build section where you can customize a Breitling watch with any face, color, strap or bracelet combination. Check it out: http://www.breitling.co.jp/

Also, the website makes mention of a Breitling club which receives yearly publications, Breitling merchandise, and reduced pricing on Breitling service or watch purchases. Is there a U.S. equivalent to this? Thanks!

Hmmmm.

I wonder if this is an official Breitling site?

~Brian

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Breitling Super Avenger
Fortis Flieger Chronograph
Rolex Submariner Date

Now that you mention it, it does seem strange that there is no link to this site from the Breitling.com/en homepage. Perhaps it is a fan site? In any case, I simply found the build feature to be fun to play with and thought that others might enjoy wasting some time with it.

It's not a fan site. It's an official Breitling Japan site.

The Japanese market has, over the years, received special attention from Breitling that doesn't seem to happen elsewhere. I've seen a number of special edition Breiltings on the second hand market that were only available in Japan - and I don't mean just an Aerospace with a logo on the dial ; I'm talking about things like proper limited edition, low production run, Navitimers with different movements, dial configurations, etc. Some are very nice indeed. Strange as I'd have thought the US or European market for Breitlings would be far larger and yet we get none of these "only available in the UK/US" editions......

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Not necesarily Driver, it's all about relative market share, if say 2% of watches sold in Japan are Breitlings as opposed to 1% in North America or 0.5% in Europe it would mean that that Breitlings largest market share is in Japan and so they reward that with special editions, events etc etc. Smasung Electronics do this all the time over here in the ME as their largest market share is here, so does Habanos SA. IN fact They just sent over one of their finest rollers to roll custom cigars for clients this month. Seiko does the same as they have had the highest market share worlwide over here (something like 10% if not more!!) so they just released a sweet version of their infamous Seiko Diver that is bilingual (has both Arabic and English options for the Day). Usualy to set the day you pull the crown to the first position and then roll it counter clock wise once for each day, with this version you set it back once for each language or twice to jump each day. It then remembers your selected language, and this is all mechanical! I was pretty impressed I bought two for the heck of it (140 USD each). They even had Friday in red writting in Arabic as opposed to the red Sunday.

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Certified watch nut.

I would like to see a pic of that Altair. Got any?

Good point there Altair, but I would have thought absolute numbers would be infinitely more important to a company.
For example if a very tiny country only had 100 people but 50 of them had Breitlings, then their market share would be 50%. But if a larger country had say 100,000,000 inhabitants and 1% of them owned Breitlings, then that's 10,000,000 sales. I would have though that the 1% from the second country would be more important to the company than the 50% from the first country?

But either way I'd certainly like to see more special editions over here!

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Driver8

Site Moderator

from what i understand japan is a huge mechanical watch market, which is kind of ironic considering how japanese quartz watches almost destroyed the swiss mechanical watch market. i think japan is a major market for breitling and a lot of other watchmakers in terms of both relative and absolute market shares.

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chronomat evolution mop
bentley motors t black dial

I will take a couple of pics later on when I get a chance (watch is at home)

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Certified watch nut.

I wish Breitling USA/NorthAm would set up a cool website and spend lots of marketing dollars on spicing up our line up too! I wonder if the Japanese pay more for their Lings than we do.

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BreitlingSource Admin
http://www.breitlingsource.com - http://blog.breitlingsource.com

Thanks for the link to that website! I am having a ball "building" my watch on there. After months of deliberation, I am going to get a Steelfish in the New Year. I have considered everything up to the Blackbird, but I keep coming back to the Steelfish. It is also over 3000.00 cheaper than the Blackbird. I have also decided on the blue dial. My 10-year-old SuperOcean has a black dial, but I really find the blue outstanding. I wish they would change the 360degree view of the Steelfish on the regular website to the new model, instead of with the old PRO I strap.
The whole Japanese website, at least what part of it I can navigate in English, is great.
Cheers,
Carl

admin, next time i jump the pond and go to japan, i'll let you know about the prices. actually my friend is going next week, i'll see if he can check some prices for me. but i think they are relatively well priced.

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chronomat evolution mop
bentley motors t black dial

That's a good idea being able to build up the watch on screen. Shame the main Breitling site doesn't have the same feature.

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Anyone else have problems with the US Breitling site? I cant seem to get to the model pictures area, since they redesigned the sight.