Watchmakers are turning to radio-controlled watches to beat out their Chinese and European counterparts, who tend to dominate the lower and higher ends of the market.
Citizen Watch Co. saw its sales for the watches, which automatically receive the correct time, jump to about 10 billion yen in fiscal 2003 from several tens of millions of yen in fiscal 2001.
"Thanks to radio-controlled watches, the average price of wristwatches has gone up by some 30 percent," said Osamu Yamada, director of Citizen.