The emergence and increasing usage of mobile phones has adversely affected the sale of wristwatches, as people preferred to keep mobile phones to remain in touch with friend and family as well as to see time. Wristwatches' shopkeepers in Sadar and Gulshan-e-Iqbal markets say that there has been a significant reduction in the sale of wristwatches, which has dipped below 60 percent during the last decade.
They said that even people didn't buy wristwatches for giving as gift. Shopkeepers in Sadar said that the wristwatch shops' owners were confronting a huge downfall in their business during the last couple of years. High school and college students don't wear wristwatches anymore, they added.
"Young people don't recognise pointing-to-the-wrist gesture as having anything to do with time or a sign language for "what time is it?" Because they have grown up with cell phones as timepiece rather than wristwatches and they don't associate the wrist with the time," they added. They said its is understandable as almost ever men and women carry a cell phone, so why they lash another clock to their wrist. They said that the wristwatch had been integral part of the wardrobes of both men and women from 1930s to 2000."But then, cell phones became ubiquitous and wristwatches started losing ground," they added.