Concepto

Concepto Watch Factory is an independent watch movement manufacture based in La Chaux-de-Fonds. The company supplies simple and complicated movements to many smaller brands, typically on a "white label" basis. Clients supply their concept or design and Concepto handles the engineering and production, including milling, cutting, and stamping. The firm can also finish movements, including exotic and craft techniques.

Concepto SA was registered on March 31 2006 and is headed by Valérien Jaquet, son of Jean-Pierre Jaquet, the watchmaking industrialist who founded La Joux-Perret. According to a 2008 article, the firm employed "a hundred people" at three sites, with the goal of "repatriating" all aspects of movement production at Rue du Collège 85 in La Chaux-de-Fonds. The factory sports a 1.2 ton Montbéliard clock, the largest in the world according to the elder Jaquet.

Concepto quickly gained fame by developing a tourbillon movement, enabling smaller companies to offer more affordable watches with the complication. According to the 2008 article, Concepto already had "about twenty customers" in just two years. At that time the company was working on an in-house chronograph movement to be available in a number of variants at more affordable prices than the tourbillon. Founded as Concepto SA, the company changed its name officially to Concepto Watch Factory in May of 2009.

On April 18, 2012 Concepto announced that it could produce the entire assortiment (balances, balance springs, pallet jewels, and escape wheels) in-house. The firm even produced its own spring alloy, known as Optimox, an achievement only a few others had accomplished. The company was then divided into the Concepto Watch Factory, Artisia Watchmaking operation, Decoparts Turning facility, and Optimo Assortiments, created that year.

The company introduced an in-house automatic chronograph movement by 2012. Cal. C2000 was a 28,800 A/h movement with a central rotor measuring 6.60 mm in height. Complications included the Compax C2021, moon phase C2024, Bi-Compax C2121, and so on. Cal. C8000 is the tourbillon movement, also available with automatic winding as Cal. C8050. By 2013 the company was advertising Cal. C99001, a clone of the Valjoux 7750 with Concepto's own in-house assortiment and adjustment system.

Among the companies known to work with Concepto are Rodolphe Cattin, Hublot, Sinn, Bulgari, and Jacob & Co. Louis Moinet watches were said to be produced "from A to Z" by Concepto in a 2014 article.

A 2016 article suggests that the company still had about a hundred employees producing 50,000 to 60,000 movements per year. The company had "internalized all the components, except the barrel springs and the rubies." The company was eager to enter the market for "entry-level" movements at this time, as ETA withdrew from that market, with movements priced from 50 to 300 francs. A 2019 article specifies that the company has 110 employees and was "set to expand", with a new 1,500 sqm factory under construction.

The company manufactures almost all of its components in-house, including movement decoration, having deployed a mix of traditional and ultra-modern CNC machines.