The story · Since 1936
The Suunto story
- 2022
Amer Sports agreed on 10 January 2022 to sell Suunto to Liesheng, a Chinese wearables company founded in Guangdong in 2015; the deal closed on 6 May 2022 and Suunto kept its base in Vantaa, Finland.
- 2020
The Suunto 7 was the brand's first smartwatch, pairing Suunto's sports features with Google's Wear OS.
- 1999
After a short spell on the stock exchange, Suunto was bought outright by the Finnish group Amer.
- 1987
Suunto launched its first dive computer, the SME-ML; until then divers worked out their times from dive tables.
- 1939
During the Winter War a Soviet sniper shot Finnish Lieutenant Norrback; the M-311 compass in his shirt pocket took the bullet and he survived.
- 1936
Founded in Finland by Tuomas Vohlonen.
- 1936
Suunto's first product was the M-311 marching compass, worn on the wrist; Finnish army orders got industrial production going, and the design was still made almost unchanged in 2006 as the M-801.
Firsts and innovations
1965. After a British sports diver found his wrist-worn Suunto compass still worked underwater, Suunto built the SK-4, which it and the diving press call the world's first diving compass.
1997. The Suunto Spyder put a multi-level dive computer into a watch that could also be worn every day; Suunto calls it the world's first watch-sized dive computer.
1998. The Suunto Vector was the first wrist-top computer to combine altimeter, barometer and compass (plus a thermometer), the ABC formula that became a mountaineering standard; it stayed in production until 2015.
Ambassadors over the years
Suunto lists him as a Suunto athlete since 2009; he went on to win UTMB in 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2021.
Began her partnership with Suunto in 2017; in 2023, as a Suunto ambassador, she won Western States, Hardrock 100 and UTMB in one season, and in 2024 Suunto released a Race S Titanium edition with a glow-in-the-dark strap carrying her handwritten mantra.
Introduced as a new Suunto ambassador in March 2021, after six years of logging his runs, rides and climbs on Suunto watches from the Core to the Suunto 9 Baro.