WATCHES BY THE COUNTRY

The Watchmakers of Hong Kong

Where assembly lines once ruled, a design city now keeps its own time.

Few places have shaped the modern wristwatch as quietly, and as thoroughly, as Hong Kong. From the 1960s through the 1990s, the city’s factories, traders, and assembly workers turned imported movements into finished watches at extraordinary volume. Exports jumped eightfold across the 1970s, and by the early 1990s Hong Kong stood as the world’s leading watch exporter by quantity, supplying close to 70 percent of the planet’s watches after pivoting hard into inexpensive quartz, as the South China Morning Post has documented.

Then the economics shifted. As costs rose, mass production drifted north to mainland China, and Hong Kong reinvented itself as a hub for design, sourcing, retail, and trade. That reinvention set the stage for something new: a generation of homegrown brands and independent makers who blend Chinese heritage with modern craft and bold, accessible design. Below are five names carrying that story forward.

The Makers

The homegrown houses

Memorigin, founded in 2011, is arguably the city’s most ambitious watchmaker. It builds mechanical watches around tourbillon movements, the kind of complication usually reserved for far pricier Swiss houses. What sets Memorigin apart is its willingness to dress that complication in Chinese cultural themes, marrying traditional watchmaking codes with local storytelling.

Longio took the longer road. Founded in 1996, it began in manufacturing and OEM work before stepping out under its own name. Today Longio makes high-spec Chinese-made mechanical watches, including tourbillon models, and stands as proof that the city’s factory era could evolve into genuine brand-building rather than fade away.

The microbrands

Phoibos Watches, established in 2016, speaks to the value-hungry enthusiast. The brand, which styles itself PHOIBOS, concentrates on dive and tool watches that deliver real capability without a premium price. It is exactly the sort of focused, no-nonsense offering that thrives in a city built on efficient production and sharp sourcing.

Selten Watch Company was founded in 2017 by Leonardo Tsai and takes a more studious approach. Selten builds modern mechanical watches with a stated emphasis on regulation and finishing, chasing the feel of a serious independent while keeping things within an accessible format. It is a quiet, craft-first proposition in a scene that often shouts.

ANICORN Watches, founded in 2014 by Joe Kwan and Chris Chan, represents Hong Kong’s design-led streak. Known for its disc-display watches, ANICORN reads more like a design studio than a traditional workshop, and it has built a reputation through collaborations with cultural, design, and space-related partners. It is the clearest expression of the city’s post-factory identity: ideas first, then time-telling.

Hong Kong’s horological story is one of reinvention. The volume left, but the know-how, the eye for design, and the trading instincts stayed. In the hands of makers like Memorigin, Longio, Phoibos, Selten, and ANICORN, that inheritance has become something distinctly the city’s own. Keep an eye on this harbor. It has always known how time flies.

And at Spot.Watch — that’s always worth noticing.