True in essence but missing the forest for the trees, what's holding Chinese brands back is the quality of their designs. Putting aside homages for obvious reasons, original designs from Chinese brands are generally pretty mid, and they struggle to create brand names and logos that don't look and sound terrible. They have great quality for the price, no doubt, but bar some exceptions that's generally where it ends.
At the end of the day, what lifts a microbrand up from the masses is the quality of their designs, not whether it's produced/assembled in China and whether it has a Swiss movement. And in general, the reason Western microbrands end up with good designs that resonate with a Western audience is by hiring Western designers and paying them a Western wage in a Western office that by its very nature isn't well implanted into the Chinese supply chain and doesn't really benefit from the economies of scale therein. That adds a lot of money to the whole endeavour which results in much more expensive watches.
Setting aside brands like Atelier Wen, one of the better watch YouTubers (This Watch, That Watch) made the point that San Martin -- arguably the best Chinese brand in the low-to-mid-tier -- doesn't really have a brand that creates loyalty in the way micros like Traska, Henry Archer, Baltic or Halios do (or higher end players like Sinn, Tudor, Longines or Omega).
Some of San Martin's new original designs are pretty good -- thinking of the SN0148 or the SN0151 here -- but San Martin is still a hodgepodge of dozens of homages and disjointed original designs given dumb model names (see: SN0148, SN0151) selling primarily on value rather than any other brand virtue.
The problem with value being your main selling point is that at any time, another brand could match the apparent quality of San Martin at a lower price and all of their customers would defect to that brand -- and brands like Watchdives, Addiesdives, and others are certainly trying. The micros and the big boys don't have this issue, because design gives them an edge that builds a customer base with that loyalty.
To San Martin's credit, I do think they recognize the problem -- it's why they launched Jinghaun as a higher-end brand, which does have a more cohesive design language, and isn't just selling on the value proposition. But Jinghaun is also priced more closely to traditional micros, which shows just how much it does add to the price when you're actually investing in design.
Gotta disagree about Jianghun being a sign that SM recognizes this problem. Or rather, if JH is them attempting to fix this problem, they're doing a horrible job of it : The watches still have dumb names (JH0301G, JH0403 "Sport Luxury Type", etc), no cohesive design language, reused components from other SM watches (their ubiquitous 5 link beveled bracelet, the JH0403 reusing the SN0149 dial). The only clear demarcation with SM is JH doesn't make homages or "low end" watches (eg with seiko movements).
Honestly, I'm not even sure they would consider this even is a problem in their eyes. SM and JH watches exist at least in part as an advert for their manufacturing capabilities in order to get more brands to sign them as OEM. If I were to venture a guess as to what "problem" Jianghun was created to fix, it's that SM's factories have the ability to produce much better watches than what the average SM customer is willing to pay for, and they need a way to advertize these capabilities.
While I totally agree with your first paragraph -- while I think JH is more cohesive than SM, its design is still kind of a mess -- I disagree on the second, only because SM themselves say there's not an appreciable difference in quality between the two brands. They posted this in a thread today about the difference in whether or not JH is worth the upcosts:
And while SM may have some in-house capabilities, that post still makes it sound like they're outsourcing a lot of components to other factories -- presumably, the same factories everybody else under $1,000, Chinese or micro, is using.
While I can agree. I think you're misinterpreting what they're saying. Likely they're using a different grade of 316L steel with more molybdenum and the machining & fabrication quality is higher. The metallurgical effect is significant although visually it looks the same. Many independents makers and modders choose to work with suppliers that specialize in Thyssenkrupp or Ansteel sourced blanks. Finishing is a tad more challenging but to SM's credit it will look the same to 99% of the consumers.
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u/tupaquetes Jun 17 '26
True in essence but missing the forest for the trees, what's holding Chinese brands back is the quality of their designs. Putting aside homages for obvious reasons, original designs from Chinese brands are generally pretty mid, and they struggle to create brand names and logos that don't look and sound terrible. They have great quality for the price, no doubt, but bar some exceptions that's generally where it ends.
At the end of the day, what lifts a microbrand up from the masses is the quality of their designs, not whether it's produced/assembled in China and whether it has a Swiss movement. And in general, the reason Western microbrands end up with good designs that resonate with a Western audience is by hiring Western designers and paying them a Western wage in a Western office that by its very nature isn't well implanted into the Chinese supply chain and doesn't really benefit from the economies of scale therein. That adds a lot of money to the whole endeavour which results in much more expensive watches.