The story
Hublot is a Swiss luxury watch brand founded in 1980 by Carlo Crocco, a scion of the founding family of Italy's Binda Group. Moving to Switzerland he formed MDM Geneve and set about designing a watch that he named the Hublot after the French word for "porthole". The watch's groundbreaking design, which combined a precious-metal case with a natural rubber strap, set a new standard in the watch industry. Following its debut at the 1980 Basel Watch Fair, the watch quickly gained attention and achieved commercial success, generating more than $US2 million in sales during its first year.
The Jean-Claude Biver era
Crocco, preoccupied by his own design work and many activities for the Hand-in-Hand Foundation, a charity helping children worldwide, set out to look for someone to oversee Hublot. In late 2003, Jean-Claude Biver, then president of Swatch Group's Omega division, met Crocco, and in May 2004, Biver assumed duties as CEO, becoming a board member and minority shareholder in Hublot Watches.
Upon his arrival, Biver set about creating a new flagship collection that was unveiled in Basel in April 2005, with the Hublot "Big Bang" chronograph. It was an immediate success and orders increased threefold in one year. In November, the Big Bang chronograph was awarded internationally, receiving the 2005 Design Prize in the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix, the Sports Watch Prize at the Watch of the Year ceremony in Japan, and the Middle Eastern Prize for the Best Oversized Watch at the Editor's Choice Watch of the Year in Bahrain. Following the arrival of Biver in 2004, the brand's sales were 24 million Swiss francs and by the end of 2006, sales were close to 100 million Swiss francs.
Stores
As of 2019, Hublot had 169 boutiques in several countries. In February 2007, Hublot opened its first mono-brand store in Paris, in the Rue Saint-Honoré. The second was opened in the summer of that year, in the Hôtel Byblos, Saint-Tropez. Today, Hublot has a store on Bond Street, London. United States locations include Bal Harbour, Beverly Hills, Boca Raton, Dallas, Houston, two in Las Vegas, New York, Palm Beach and Scottsdale.
Acquisition by LVMH
In April 2008, luxury goods group LVMH announced it had acquired Hublot from Crocco for an undisclosed fee, adding to its existing portfolio of watch brands including TAG Heuer.
WISeKey
At BaselWorld 2009, Hublot unveiled WISeKey, a new method of detecting counterfeit watches. Using a smart card, the system authenticates watches on Hublot's servers. The system went live in August 2009.
Hublot Manufacture
Hublot's first manufacture opened in 2009 in Nyon, near Geneva, Switzerland and rapidly developed notable manufacturing expertise and capabilities.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hublot, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4