The Business of Watches [032] Henrik Ekdahl (Managing Director, Leica Watches, And Accessories)¶
Published on Wed, 8 Jul 2026 15:00:00 +0000
Why Leica's connection to watchmaking runs long and deep, and how the vaunted camera and lens maker plans to make its mark in the luxury watch market.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee's "The Business of Watches" podcast, host Andy Hoffman travels to Wetzlar, Germany to visit Leica's headquarters and interview Henrik Ekdahl, Managing Director of Leica's watch division. Ekdahl shares his fascinating career journey, which included stints at Cartier, Rolls Royce/BMW, and a 17-year tenure at IWC Schaffhausen before returning to Leica, where he had previously worked in the 1990s.
The conversation explores Leica's evolution into watchmaking, emphasizing the historical connection between the brand's founder Ernst Leitz I, who trained as a watchmaker in Switzerland, and the mechanical precision inherent in Leica's cameras. Since launching watches in 2022, Leica has developed two product lines: the ZM1/ZM2 with manufacture movements made in Germany (priced around €10,000-14,000), and the ZM11/ZM12 Swiss-made models with Chronode movements (€6,800-8,000). Ekdahl discusses the brand's deliberate approach to growth, producing in the low four-digit range annually and distributing primarily through Leica's 120 stores worldwide. Looking forward, he reveals plans to increase in-house manufacturing capabilities, leverage Leica's world-leading optics expertise in future watch designs, and potentially introduce more accessible product lines while maintaining the brand's tool-focused philosophy rather than positioning watches as pure luxury items.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Andy Hoffman | Welcome to the business of watches, the Ho Dinky podcast, where we go behind the scenes to talk to the executives of the industry that are making things tick. I'm your host, Andy Hoffman. Today I am in Wetzlar, Germany, at the headquarters and the home of Leica, the world-famous and storied camera and lens maker. But Leica, since 2022, when they launched, has also been making watches. And we are joined today by Henrik Ekdahl, who is the managing director of the web |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Thank you very much and thank you for accepting our invitation to come here to Wetzlar. Uh we are very happy that we get the the chance to to show you the heart and soul and muscles of of Leica. |
| Andy Hoffman | Indeed. It is a uh fascinating place. It's a whole basically a campus here, uh Leica land. Uh there's lots to see. It's extraordinary and and it's um it's fantastic the way um that the company showcases its place in photographic history um being right at the center of it and and um and and |
| Henrik Ekdahl | It is and and uh I think we here we have the possibility to show everything that Laika stands for. We have everything from an archive to museum with a lot of exhibitions. We have our own hotel. We have uh the headquarters of course. Uh one of two factories we have. So it's it's pretty amazing here. And we have up to sixty thousand visitors per year. But at the same time it's never too crowded either. So but uh I can recommend to everybody who who who's flying into |
| Andy Hoffman | Indeed. It's uh just a short hop um from Frankfurt. So let's talk about you. It's interesting. I didn't realize this is your second tour, as it were, at Leica. You you worked here um quite a while ago. Tell us about your career, which is spanned uh cameras, watches, I think uh automobiles. Yes. Yeah. Tell us some uh where you've been and and how you got here. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Well first of all, I'm I I was born in Sweden, so I have a Swedish father and uh German mother, so I'm bilingual. And uh after studying in Sweden and uh working as an officer in the Swedish army for a number of years, I um did uh a year of postgraduate studies in Germany, and and while doing that, I was starting to look for a job and I saw an ad that uh like I was looking for uh somebody in the international sales department and uh I applied because I had been a lot into photography. I took a lot of black and white photography when I was younger and developed and and was dreaming of a career as a photographer and uh then I ended up studying business administration instead. Uh I I started to work here at Leica in 1996, and it was a completely different Leica. It was, of course, the same brand and the same dedication and love to the brand and to photography, but it was much smaller. And you you cannot compare the like of today's much bigger, uh more successful, uh, more impressive, what you see here, etc. But um actually quite a number of colleagues from those days are still here, which I think is a nice sign, uh, that they they never left Leica. So yeah, I I worked here for uh two years, then I felt I have to go to a bigger city again coming from Stockholm and going to small Vetzla, which is a nice but rather small city. And uh so I I I uh moved to Munich and started to work for Kartier, uh which is a pretty successful watch and jewelry brand as well. |
| Andy Hoffman | We've heard of them. Yeah. So |
| Henrik Ekdahl | uh I was uh product manager uh for watches there, but in a subsidiary. And it's it's a huge difference whether you work in a subsidiary or in headquarters. So and uh I uh after that I I took over the communication department and uh then I um thought maybe now it's time to to to work for another brand. So I joined uh Rolls Royce. Huh? So I joined the BMW group and uh I still remember during the application uh process I was asked for which automotive brand would you like to work? And in those days Mini was the coolest brand. |
| Unknown | Yes. Uh and they they hang carbon |
| Henrik Ekdahl | fiber uh cars on on on walls and it was very cool. And I said mini. And I got Rolls Royce. Which I wasn't too too sad about. But uh uh so Rolls Royce uh was uh quite an experience, and I still remember the first time I I drove a phantom near uh Goodwood in Southern England. It was quite an experience. And after the brand strategy department with the focus on Rolls Royce, I had the chance to go back to Sweden and work as the marketing manager for Sweden and Scandinavia for BMW, which was awesome as well. Very much enjoyed that and and fantastic brands and budgets and and uh great combination with the marketing sales working together towards the goal of yeah increased market share and et cetera, et cetera. And uh and then one day I got a call, and it was my um ex-boss from Richemont, to whom Katy and other lovely brands belong, and he said, Hey Henrik, wanna come back and take over IWC Schaffhausen as an MD for Central Europe? And um I uh also got uh at the same time a nice offer at BMW to take over uh the the marketing department for germany which is pretty important absolutely big |
| Andy Hoffman | and somehow i felt like hey |
| Henrik Ekdahl | come on iwc is a cool brand i love watches uh let's go so So I joined uh I rejoined uh Richhmore in uh two thousand six and worked as the MD for IWC Schaffhausen uh for Central Europe but also for Russia and for Turkey and Israel. So I had uh three subsidiaries and up to 32 countries. And um yeah, had uh fantastic years there with a fantastic brand and and great team, but after 17 years it felt like hey it's time for something new and and I had all the time kept in touch with Leica because Leica was always uh I yeah I I I never lost the love to the the photography and and uh and and the brand. And um yeah, one day um one of my former colleagues contacted me and said, Hey, I think uh they are looking for somebody and uh they wanna talk to you. Uh so yeah now it's almost two and a half years since I rejoined Leica. |
| Andy Hoffman | Right. And I haven't regretted it. For those who don't know, I mean let's talk, you know, first about Leica itself as a camera manufacturer and a lens manufacturer, also a microscope maker, great history. And then what is that link, you know, but then that natural link between cameras and watches. I believe Ernst Leitz at one point studied uh watch making. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | But yeah, tell tell us. I mean, you know, what |
| Andy Hoffman | is the what is the the link Indeed, |
| Henrik Ekdahl | I've been asked this question of course quite a number of times, but less and less, because there is more and more acceptance of the fact that that Leica is kind of uh allowed to to produce watches because as you said, Ernst I, our founder, when he was twenty years old, he went from Betzlar to Neuchatel in Switzerland and did a watchmaking apprenticeship for about two years. And he learned about precision engineering, about using the materials used in watchmaking. He learned about serial production, which was very, very important. And this knowledge she took back to Vätsla. And uh that laid the foundation for the like of today. We started to build uh I would say the besta mikroskops in the world and and uh 100 one years ago the the Leica one was launched, which was a revolution, and a lot of the the parts inside our cameras, especially the analog cameras, remind of larger parts of a watch or a clock. And uh as I showed you earlier today, the the iconic Leica M6 and analog camera, our bestseller, uh, which has been on the on the market since nineteen eighty six. When you take off the top cover, you see a mechanical timekeeping device controlling the shutter, consisting of bridges, gear trains, springs. It's amazing and it's super precise, completely mechanical. And it it controls the shutter from one thousandth of a second down to one second or up up to to a an second and um uh you you see how the parts move when you when you change the the the shutter speed and I would say the heritage of Ernsleiz the first and the fact that we have products which to a large share reminder of uh watches entitles us to to actually um yeah I don't want to say go back to the roots, but somehow to to to enlarge the product portfolio a little bit. Carefully, but a little bit. |
| Andy Hoffman | So you know, we talked about that that link between watches. Indeed, you know, when you talk about that M6 camera, I mean that that's a timing device uh in some ways that is in that. And then so you know, historically there have been some Leica branded watches in the past in the 1990s, I I believe. But you know, the current iteration and this this you know the Leica Watch brand as we know it now, that project started in 2015. I mean tell us about you know the history of that and and and then up to the launch and uh and what you know and then we'll talk about uh where we are now. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Indeed, even when I was working for Laika for the first time, ninety six to ninety eight, there were some uh watches being either sold or given away for free with the camera. So as you can imagine those watches are were quite uh different from the the the watches we are talking about now. So when whenever a camera um reached uh a certain uh peak of its life cycle and uh maybe sales started to decline a little bit or so we started to offer bundles with the with a wash that somehow had a certain Leica uh appeal and design, uh Bauhaus style. And that helped. They became very popular. And and um I showed you earlier a photo of me in ninety-six with uh uh Leica R eight and uh a Leica watch. Uh and then uh more or less the same photo I took in two thousand twenty-four when I started with the with our current model and uh and the Leica ZM2. Uh so that's uh uh a nice picture. I'm happy I took that one. So moving forward, Leica had a very tough time when the shift came from analog to digital photography, you know. And it was uh big companies like Polaroid and Kodak had problems in in yeah coping with that and they didn't make it more or less. I'm not surprised that that uh rather small company like Leica had difficulties, but luckily in 2004, uh Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, uh our our majority shareholder and the the uh chairman of the supervisory board, uh, he saved Leica. He uh invested, he has been heavily involved ever since in Leica and the rest of his family as well. Uh they all work for for this lovely brand. And um once uh he he enabled Leica to digitalize the iconic M system, and then it took off like a rocket. So so because there were so many Leica enthusiasts, photographic enthusiasts out there, just waiting for a possibility to continue to use Leica, but digital Leica. So once we had the financial means, Dr. Kaufmann, who loves uh cameras but he also loves watches, he said now it's time for the Leica on the wrist. Knowing about the heritage with Ernst Leitzer I, our founder, and knowing what uh is hidden under theneath top cover of our analog cameras. So there was a project team set up in 2015 and um they picked uh different people. Um Reinhardt Mais was a movement constructor who worked for Lange und Söhne and IWC. They picked Professor Achim Heine, who is an designer who has designed a number of Leica products. So they they handpicked a couple of people and the small project team started to think about how should Leica watch look like, which characteristics should it have? And I'm sure they had a lot of long sessions uh trying to figure out should it be something we we just, you know, we sell the license or we do it in-house uh and and probably it became clear very, very fast, or maybe it wasn't even up for discussion. It's a serious project, so we have to do it ourselves, not meaning that we have to assemble everything in house or so. We uh like the rest of the industry, we we use suppliers and and the help of partners. But um the decision was made to go for a hand wound manufacture movement. So actually we developed our own movement with partners. Uh the the the main partner is Lehmann Precision. |
| Unknown | Talk about them, yeah German, |
| Andy Hoffman | but it's not a name that we necessarily think about um with watches that much. It's it's quite an interesting partnership. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | They are I I would call them the the world champions of milling. Can mill, they mill instead of stamping and and uh so they they produce among others machines which we use to produce cameras. Uh, they also produce machines which the biggest watch brand of all is using. And um they uh You mean that |
| Andy Hoffman | watch brand in Geneva, yeah. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | And um so the key players involved knew each other. And Lehman was big enough to to conduct the serial production, yet they were small enough to be interesting when the the startup Leica wants to start with watches came and knocked on the door. And um so so um the decision to go for a hand worn movement was actually deliberately taken because the relationship between the person wearing a hand-wound watch and the watch is I think much tighter than if you have an automatic watch. I mean I have both. I have uh collect watches, of course, and and I have automatic and hand-wound watches, but personally I love to wind watch, and you have to take care of this hand-wound watch in a different way. You have to feed it every second or third day or so. And um so we have |
| Andy Hoffman | a relationship. Yes, there's and it's |
| Henrik Ekdahl | like a living creature on your wrist somehow. In 2022, the the first two watches were launched, the ZM1 and ZM2. ZM stands for Sightemesser. Sightemesser is a time measuring device, uh, which is kind of what you find on top of the Leica M6 camera, uh, so that fits pretty well. And um these watches are 41 millimeter uh steel case, um hand wound, like I said, 60 hours power reserve. They have a five and seven uh complications and the main features of them are certainly except for the for the design which uh I personally but also a lot of other people think fits Leica because that is important but the main feature is certainly the push crown, so you don't have to pull the crown, but you push a red dot, just like you push the shutter release on the camera. And that stops the watch. There's a small second zero reset. The watch tells you I have stopped. Now you can set me exactly like precision is something that of course goes for all watches, but especially also for for for like and for for our cameras. So you it's very easy to set it. You never end up in a in a situation where you don't know, did I pull the crown now to set the date or the time? Uh and on top, um, we have a very easy-to-read power reserve, which reminds of the shutter of a uh analog uh camera. So um they were launched in 2022. We also had a very limited uh uh series of 50 golden watches. |
| Andy Hoffman | Right. ZM1, uh which were |
| Henrik Ekdahl | lovely as well. And there's a parallel |
| Andy Hoffman | there in terms of you know gold um uh finished um cameras that have been you know I mean special order um that have been made in the past. I mean it's not um out of uh sync for uh like it to do something like that. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | No, no. And of course we also have to be realistic. We had to start with the a few hundreds uh the first year and uh it it it takes uh many years to establish uh yourself as a watch brand in the market. |
| Andy Hoffman | This is this is certainly true. But it's interesting. I mean, um let's talk about a bit, you know, um just the the ZM1 and the ZM2. I mean, how, you know, that Leica philosophy and the Leica sort of aesthetic is um is portrayed and conveyed in the watch. I mean it's interesting, you know, the movement is quite something to look at, but it's not, you know, you talk about the the like a camera as being a tool and you know the watch has a lot of toolish elements. It's not overly finished, although certainly nicely finished with the movement. Yeah, I mean, um talk about how, you know, you're you're conveying that that uh like a philosophy. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | The trick is of course to to have a certain but not too strong link between cameras and the world of photography and the the watch. We're not into gadgets. Um like as not a not a gadget company, so we we never thought about producing a watch that can take photos or having a light meter, even though a light meter would maybe be nice in the future, huh? But um at the same time, of course, also to to have credibility and to have uh to create desirability, the The the watches had to have a certain Leica DNA. Who, as I said before, designed a number of binoculars and cameras and other Leica products. And the project team was of course looking for certain features of cameras that made sense to be transferred to the wrist. And our cameras, we we don't see our cameras, even though they have a certain price, huh? Or value as, uh the luxury industry always says. The value of this product is this and that. Uh they are pretty expensive, but but they're worth every euro or whatever currency you're using. But we don't see them as luxury products. They are tools. They are fantastic tools to which which which focus on the essential, meaning it should focus your attention on on being able to take a great photo. And we try to transfer that to the wrist as well, meaning the the the watches have a number of uh features that are really usable. You you for example, last year I traveled through Asia for four weeks and I woke up in a new city every every second day and a new time zone and and the ZM2 with the with the second time zone was fantastic and um easy to change uh the time and uh adjust the date etc so so uh like is a lot about uh i to talk of course regularly to our um to our camera designers and they try to reduce as much as possible until they get to the point where a further reduction would decrease the usability. And uh so um yeah uh one thing was of course this push crown uh uh relating to the shutter release of the cameras, the power reserve relating to the uh the to the shutter of analog So there are a number of features included, um, but they make sense. |
| Andy Hoffman | And there's not a like a red dot uh on the dial uh the ZM1 or ZM2. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | The red dot is very dominant, and if we had put the red dot on the dial, it would have overshadowed the rest somehow. And um I think that the red dot has been used on too many products in the past, maybe not even sellable products, but merchandising products, and we are uh reducing that massively right now. We have other means to to to label them with our uh brand, uh but the red dots uh should be found on on cameras, on binoculars, on other products, but not on on the watches. |
| Andy Hoffman | It's interesting though, and before we go on to talk about the ZM12 and the ZM11, uh the other um uh models in the lineup, you know, you said that uh Leica cameras are not luxury. These watches are these are you're you're in the luxury watch space, are you not? How are you squaring that circle? |
| Henrik Ekdahl | I I I would uh say that's um part of the the mission we have with the watch project is to bring Leica a bit closer to the luxury industry with parts of the products, meaning the watches. We still don't intend to to make the cameras luxury products but uh if you if you ask uh customers they they might see uh see them as low luxury products that but I I hope that most of them actually see it mainly as a tool to take fantastic photos. So but uh yes, we we we of course also want to bring new customers into the the Leica ecosystem and um we we have already managed to do so on a la on a small scale, but still because uh about fifty percent of the watches have been sold to existing Lyka customers, and fifty percent have been sold to uh new customers. |
| Andy Hoffman | Interesting. And let's talk about the ZM12 and the ZM11. The other um uh models are sort of, you know, I think of as sort of two model lines, and then we should talk about distribution and where you're selling your watches and and and how so. But yeah, I mean, you know, the um the ZM1, ZM2 both marked made in Germany on them. The following watches, the uh ZM12, ZM11 are switched |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Yes. So yeah, talk about how those |
| Andy Hoffman | models have evolved and and what you're doing with those, and we can talk about price points as well. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Of course, to the if you want to establish like as a as a watch brand uh you have to have more than one product line and and the uh ZM1 and two they also uh came as uh monochrome editions monochrome meaning we have actually cameras that can only take black and white photos. Right. Uh they don't have a color sensor, uh, and they take the most fantastic black and white photos you can imagine. Uh and um uh those are called monochrome. Uh so uh the the uh monochrome watches are very low contrast, very black, and they are very cool. So we had of course different uh different uh uh models uh belonging to the um ZM1 and ZM2 range, but it was still one family, and you need I would say two or three later when you grow maybe three uh product uh lines. Uh when you have too many, you can't really support them either. But the second product line should um uh was decided that it should be a bit more uh modern, a bit more sporty, uh increased waterproofness. And uh the inspiration for the ZM11 and ZM12 came more from the world of photography. And the most fascinating with those watches is uh the fact that the dials are dual-layered and dual-colored. So depending on, like in photography, depending on from where which angle and in which light conditions you look at these watches, they they you suddenly you see a second color appear. And that's pretty fascinating. And they I so far nobody has has uh answered uh yes, I know another brand on my question. Have you ever seen something like this? Huh? And I I keep on asking wherever I am in the world. And so we are the only ones, and these these dials are fascinating. And the the the the major use p or raison d'être why do they exist of of the ZM eleven and twelve is not uh that they offer the watchmaking complications the ZM one and two do, but they are simply beautiful, fascinating watches with gorgeous tiles and and uh of course high quality movements from our partner Cronaude um in base in Loch Le Lochle in Switzerland. And yes, it is a bit confusing. We have made in Germany and Swiss made, but life is complicated sometimes. |
| Andy Hoffman | Indeed it is. And um talk about the price points uh that you're in and then where um you're distributing in and selling the pieces? |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Well the ZM1 is around 10,000 euros or slightly below. Um the ZM2 is around 14,000 euros. The The ZM11 and 12 are around six thousand eight hundred to eight thousand euros, depending on whether you you choose titanium or steel and uh a bracelet or a strap. So it's it's below, which is good because it doesn't feature the manufacture movement with the with the complications. At the same time, it's it's a Cronaude movement. So um we need of course different price offerings for the customers and the current distribution is uh almost completely limited to Leica stores. Laica is a medium sized company. We are not part of any group or so. Yet we have uh 120 stores worldwide. And that is pretty impressive, I have to say. When I came returned here, when I left, we didn't have |
| Andy Hoffman | Remind me, mm yeah most of those stores are corporate owned, some not all of those the. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | About ninety are uh our own or even above ninety, and then we have a few uh um franchise operated or partner uh uh operated. But actually I've I've seen quite a few of them and it for the end customer of course there's no uh real difference uh it's it's a like a store and we have uh we have stores from from uh the most western is in la New York is super important for us. Uh we had a very nice event with Odinki there one and a half years ago, I think, yeah. Then all the way to Tokyo. And most stores are in in Europe or in Asia. Uh in the US, we are currently expanding. We just opened uh Chicago uh only a couple of weeks ago. Uh we have uh so far only one watch dealer or jeweler. Yes. And he's actually based here in our hometown of Wetzla.. |
| Unknown | In Betzla And he loves selling uh |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Leica because he he says he has so nice nice stories to tell. And uh he he puts his own Leica cameras, he has a couple of Leica cameras, he puts them on the display, whether we want it or not, and um uh people keep staring at them. And of course, a lot of visitors, international visitors coming to Vesla, they they are here because of their love of Leica cameras, and he has uh probably gotten more requests to buy his cameras than his uh than our watches. But uh um we we plan to expand, but slowly we we cannot produce uh that much either. Um and and we need to find the right partners. We need to find partners who understand that this is a fragile little plant uh which needs uh fertilizer and care and love to grow into a strong tree. And um it's not the immediate cash cow. But we offer, of course, uh something different uh than the other brands. We we offer uh this fantastic combination of of cameras and and and watches and uh nobody else has that. There are a lot of fantastic watch brands around but there's uh only one Leica. |
| Andy Hoffman | And talk about, you know, um how b if you can give us any sense of of production as you say you're basically only online from your website, you sell the watches as well, I believe, and then that distribution. Can you give us a sense of of what the production is uh per year and and and you know what are your hopes in terms of uh growing that? |
| Unknown | We um definitely want to grow of |
| Henrik Ekdahl | course, we will grow, but it it takes time. But we uh the the production annual production rate is uh low four digit. That's uh as much as I would say. Um also depending on whether we have a launch or not, and and we we currently do not have the uh capacity to conduct uh two launches a year or so uh we're we're it's a it's a s very small team here but uh that's where we are right now and I would say if we in in in in ten years are uh selling ten thousand watches, that would be amazing. Maybe it's only eight, uh but um um that's kind of the direction. It also depends on how the plans of of increasing sales in our own channels as well as uh uh expanding in in into um yeah uh wholesale is is proceeding now. |
| Andy Hoffman | Indeed, yeah. No, it's quite a challenge. And but you know that wholesale market is obviously shifting and and changing uh as we speak. So there there are certainly uh opportunities. So, you know, looking forward, I mean you at the moment talk about, you know, how the watches are produced and and and you know what role obviously you're the designer and and and creator of these pieces, but yeah, I mean I guess some of the watches are basically produced and assembled in Switzerland, others in in Germany. What is that going to look like going forward and when we will see you know, I I got to um tour the manufacturing here today and obviously you have um uh manufacturing in uh c at least one other manufacturing plant. I mean what w you know, m what might we see um more of Leica in the product um going forward in terms of that manufacturing side, do you think? And the design, I guess too. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Actually re regarding the design, um we one and a half years ago recruited the um uh Gerd Plange, uh former colleague of mine working for IWC Schaffhausen and he was in charge of the Portuguese and pilot watches for 22 years. Um pretty nice watches. People |
| Andy Hoffman | know those watch and a super nice guy |
| Henrik Ekdahl | with whom you actually can discuss. Um, so uh Gert has um of course he had to l actually I was told that many years ago he was thinking about how a Leica watch should look like. So that's pretty pretty funny, huh? And um of course we brought him here and and uh he he's a lot into photography as well nowadays also with Leica of course and and he had to to uh uh uh the brand was not new to him, but he had to take a deep dive into it. And um he is very good in in taking what we have and further developing it. Uh, because we we don't want to uh start from scratch every time there's a new MD uh in charge of the the the the watch and accessory division or uh a new designer joints or so um but they it has to be uh yeah I think Porsche with the 911 does it perfectly this it's an evolution uh and we And we don't need a revolution all the time. From time to time you need a bit of uh excitement and uh uh disruption, uh of course. But uh so so |
| Unknown | where do I see us in in a number of years. Well we we definitely um plan to increase the share of |
| Henrik Ekdahl | of our yeah that's called value creation uh we we we have the capacity and the will to produce more |
| Unknown | of the watch parts in-house. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Uh we have two fantastic factories, we have all the machines we need, we have uh a lot of competence and we uh have already looked at the first uh prototypes, samples, whatever you call them, and and we will do that. Oh and we will uh also I mean uh |
| Unknown | uh I I I dare to |
| Henrik Ekdahl | say that we are the world leader in in optic |
| Unknown | yes uh development optics. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | This is what this town uh runs |
| Andy Hoffman | on that that specialty that expertise and |
| Henrik Ekdahl | and and uh we are looking at meaningful ways of transferring some of this competence to the wrist. That's all you will uh uh hear from me today. But that looks very promising and a clear uh customer USP. Oh. And um so so we will do more in-house. We do not aim to neither develop nor assemble |
| Unknown | watch movements uh short to midterm. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | I wouldn't rule out that we assemble uh watches in whether it's here in Wetzlau or we build up something somewhere else long term, but we will do more ourselves which we we can do it. We we also need it for credibility and and it's interesting and fun to do more. Very close to the current design languages for quite a while. Then again, there are extremely interesting and there's a huge um heritage related to to cameras uh regarding um designs and and materials and colors and i think that we can uh do much more in the future without trying to transfer a camera to the wrist. It's not that's not what I'm talking about. But to get even more inspiration |
| Unknown | from uh these fantastic cameras |
| Henrik Ekdahl | and and and do something like the monochrome which, is a prime example, huh? |
| Unknown | Yeah. And |
| Henrik Ekdahl | and we also plan to do it already. |
| Andy Hoffman | I mean there is so much design history and distinct design history and and and um you know specific models from the past. Laica itself on the camera side, the production side has um done a lot, you know, done a number of partnerships, collaborations um with others. Is that something that you would explore on the watch s |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Leica has indeed done that a lot uh with with cameras, but sometimes also uh binoculars or so. And I think that that might be a very good idea, but only once |
| Unknown | we have l our own |
| Henrik Ekdahl | base to stand on. You know, we we have to create something ourselves first, which is 100% Laika and not a collaboration with somebody else. And once we have that, I think we can spice it up with the with the smart collaborations, whether it's uh some some designer or another strong brand or so. I mean we we've had collaborations with brands who have uh produced uh uh straps and different carrying devices for cameras in the past and and um uh |
| Unknown | there are amazingly |
| Henrik Ekdahl | uh number of brands that would like to collaborate with us. And and we are talking about the absolute top brands out there, uh whether it's fashion or |
| Andy Hoffman | how Dicky has collaborated with like in the past. Exactly. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | So um and we feel honored. Uh and then again you shouldn't dance on too many parties. So you have to choose your your partners and and Hudinky certainly is a great one. So um I could well imagine doing that, but first I want to we have to do our homework. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. And then, you know, last thing, looking forward, I mean, you know, um uh you've got the two model lines, you haven't released a new watch in a while. What what uh |
| Henrik Ekdahl | April twenty five was the since April twenty-five. |
| Andy Hoffman | So you know what should we expect next? What's the big next big hurdle for um the like a watch division going forward |
| Henrik Ekdahl | actually it was june twenty s twenty five the the Urban Green came after the ZM twelve ZM twelve came uh last year in the beginning of the year and in April and then the uh the Urban Green. |
| Unknown | Yeah. So not so long. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Unknown | So so w well we we we are |
| Henrik Ekdahl | working on uh we have uh planned to launch um |
| Unknown | either one or two new |
| Henrik Ekdahl | models in the ongoing fiscal year. However, in watchmaking, you you sometimes are being surprised by long lead times or challenges of uh whatever kind, but we will certainly see very exciting new projects in uh 2027. Uh which is related to I would say uh uh more a accessible uh product line, but with a lot of of Leica DNA in it with the cases made in our plant. So um |
| Unknown | we we st we still need some time. |
| Henrik Ekdahl | Uh uh and then uh yeah then after that the sky is the limit, huh? |
| Andy Hoffman | Excellent. Well uh Henrik Ectol, thank you so much for welcoming us here in Wetzlar and um helping us learn more and know more and uh get excited about Lyca Watches. Thank you very much |
| Henrik Ekdahl | thank you very much and |
| Andy Hoffman | that's the business of watches for this episode we hope you enjoyed please head on over to Hodinkee.com where you can join the discussion and leave any comments or questions about this episode or the business of watches in general. Who knows? We might even answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Whoa. |