Junior high students used to receive wristwatches as gifts for getting into high school, keeping them until they graduated from university. But the growing availability of cell phones has led many high school and college students to forsake this tradition.
Of late, though, amid the current economic slump, students are buying watches to aid their job-hunting efforts.
"For the last several years, 'job hunting' has been the buzzword in product development. We are targeting university sophomores and juniors," said Kiyoshi Mochizuki, a section chief at the product planning department of Seiko Watch Corp.