PURPOSE: To improve the functionability of an electronic timepiece which uses small-sized battery by storing the information of a frequency setting circuit in a nonvolatile memory when the battery voltage drops while using the output signal of a battery voltage detecting circuit as a write signal, and reading it after the batteries are replaced.

CONSTITUTION: When the voltage of the battery 26 of the electronic timepiece equipped with the nonvolatile memory drops almost to an operation limit voltage, the voltage detecting circuit 27 operates with a predetermined detection level to output an alarm signal EDD. This alarm signal is regarded as the write signal by a driving circuit 28b, which outputs a write voltage to place the nonmemory 28a in a write state. The memory 28a is stored with the information of the frequency setting circuit 18 supplied to data terminals D1WDn. When a timer circuit 10 restarts operation after the batter is replaced, the frequency setting circuit 18 presets the stored information in the memory 28a again to restarts variable frequency dividing operation. Consequently, information on a set value is not destroyed and rewriting is facilitated.