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BOE Technology

BOE Technology – The Largest Display Panel Maker in the World.

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BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd., also known as Jingdongfang, is a China-based electronics and semiconductor company with its headquarters located in Beijing, China. Being an electronics company, BOE Technology exactly knows how much effort it takes to stay strong among great competition from its peers. And, it is tougher to be popular and stay relevant, when the big names from foreign countries are your competitors. BOE Technology is one of the biggest examples of how local products can also be the best, and how buying local products can help the country’s economy, too.

About more than twenty years ago, the company was struggling to make its mark in the industry as the competition was tough. But with constant efforts, BOE Technology is now known on the international level, and companies like Apple Inc. are its permanent customers.

About BOE Technology

BOE Technology is among the leading electronics company in China and expertise in electronics health care, the internet of things, and photovoltaics, such that it produces products like interface devices, smart medicine, smart IoT systems as well as engineering integration-related products. BOE Technology is also famous as the largest supplier of LCD, OED, and flexible/foldable displays. The company also manufactures and sells fingerprint sensors, optoelectronic sensors, and solar panels.

BOE Technology
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BOE Technology has expanded overseas to 19 countries and has over 65,000 people working for it. Looking at the 2018 records, the company earned revenues worth US$14.56 billion and values at US$18 billion. SES-imagotag and Varitronix are its major subsidiaries.

The Founding of BOE Technology

Wang Dongsheng, who was an accountant, founded BOE Technology as Beijing Oriental Electronics Group Co., Ltd in April 1993. He opened the company by overtaking an ailing vacuum tube factory and raising money from his subordinates. Though, in the beginning, the founder had to sell mouthwash to generate extra income, the company soon was manufacturing and selling the products it intended to, i.e. TV and monitor displays.

The sudden rise in revenues helped BOE Technology list the B shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, in 1997. The company was then renamed BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. in 2001. It made its first acquisition in the same year, where it bought the LCD and OLED businesses of SK Hynix for US$22.5 million. In the next two years, the company also bought the flat-panel display business of the same company. In 2009, BOE Technology also acquired the Taipei-based Display Research Center and AIO Manufacturing Plant of Suzhou Gaochuang Electronics.

BOE Technology put the foundation of the BOE Energy Technology Co., Ltd and entered the photovoltaic business in 2009. The company expanded overseas when it opened its branch and an R&D center in Tokyo, Japan (2011) and Santa Clara in Silicon Valley, California (2012). In 2015 and 2016, BOE Technology opened offices in Frankfurt Germany, and New Delhi, India, respectively. In the following years, the company expanded to Dubai, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, etc.

The company partnered with the Universal Display Corporation for the supplies of phosphorescent OLED materials. It also entered into a joint venture with Kopin Corporation and Olightek to extend its operations in micro-displays manufacturing. The same year, BOE Technology became the world’s largest LCD TV and monitor producer. As of 2019, the company holds second place on shipping the smartphone OLED panel, Huawei and Samsung being few of its customers.

Acquisitions

In the past decade, BOE Technology has made some of the biggest acquisitions, which have contributed to the growth of the company. K-Tronics (2010), OASIS International Hospital (2015), Varitronix (2016),  SES-imagotag (2018) are some of the BOE’s acquired companies.

The Founder: Wang Dongsheng

Wang Dongsheng founded BOE Technology around 26 years ago at the age of 35. He was working as an accountant in a state-owned vacuum-tube factory, which he took over later to found BOE Technology. Before starting the company, he sold mouthwash for extra income and borrowed money from his subordinates from his former company to start the business. Today, after 26 years, after all the efforts of Dongsheng, BOE Technology is not only the largest electronics and semiconductor company in China but is among the largest LCD-LED suppliers in the world.

Keyence

Keyence Corporations – The Japanese Electronics and Semiconductor Leader

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Keyence is a Japanese multinational electronics company with its headquarters located in Osaka, Japan. The company is one of the largest manufacturers of electronic equipment like sensors, touch panels, 3D printers, microscopes, bar code readers, recorders, packaged software, etc.  It is a fabrication-less company such that it plans and designs the products, but the manufacturing is done by the other companies under a contract from Keyence. The company is operational in industries including automotive, IT, logistics, manufacturing, and software. Keyence is a publically traded company, and over 8000 people are working for it in its global offices.

Founding of Keyence

Takemitsu Takizaki founded Keyence in March 1972 as Lead Electric. The company got worldwide recognition as a leader in the field of industrial automation and inspection equipment manufacturing in 1974. In 1975, the company brought a new product, ‘high accuracy proximity sensor’, and the high demand for the product brought lots of success and growth to the company. In the next ten years, the company was known as the world leader in the electronic industry.

Keyence
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In 1983, the company introduced the optical fiber photoelectric sensor, and the next year, it established its first international office in the United States. Keyence developed the first photoelectric sensor to utilize a laser diode as the light source in 1986, and the same year, the name of the company was changed to Keyence Corporation. The company introduced a compact barcode reader under its name in 1989, and in 1990, it came with a microscope having a built-in monitor. In the next decade, the company developed the world’s smallest machine vision system, the world’s first autofocus color laser microscope, and a high speed and high accuracy machine vision system.

The years starting from 2000 were the years of innovation for the company. It was developing new products every year, and the world’s first 3-Axis laser marker (2006) as well as the world’s first CMOS laser sensor (2007), was one of them. Keyence also introduced the world’s first microscope with high-speed magnified video capture capabilities in 2008 and the fastest laser triangulation sensor in the industry in 2009. world’s smallest micro-head (2011), the world’s fastest 2D/3D laser displacement sensor (2012), and the world’s first macroscope with one-shot 3D measurement (2013) are also credited under the name of Keyence.

The Products

From photoelectric sensor and proximity sensors to barcode reader, laser markers, and digital microscopes, a large client base of Keyence rely on the company for these products. Keyence specializes in manufacturing products under categories like automation sensors, industrial safety, industrial laser markers, machine vision systems and vision sensors, industrial inkjet printer, measurement systems and sensors, advanced microscope, static eliminators, and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC).

Keyence Today

Keyence has been in the electronic industry for almost 50 years, and since the inception of the company, the world has witnessed the per year steady growth of the company. The company is one of the leaders in the development and manufacturing of automation equipment worldwide. Other than the electronic and semiconductor industry, the company includes clients from the automotive, food and packaging, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries. 

As of 2018, the company made revenues worth US$4.958 billion, and 6000 people were working for it in its global offices. It has appeared in the “Top Ten Most Excellent Companies in Japan” list by Nihon Keizai Shimbun multiple times. It has also been named as one of the best companies for employees in terms of salaries, the average annual salary for full-time employees, etc. Keyence operates through its network of  16 international organizations.

The Founder: Takemitsu Takizaki

Takemitsu Takizaki founded Keyence Corporation in 1972. He is a well-known Japanese businessman and currently serving as the honorary chairman of Keyence. Takizaki was born on 10 June 1945 in Japan. He completed his high school education at Amagasaki Industry High School. Apart from his interest in electronics and semiconductors, he is also a keen fossil collector.

After founding the Keyence, he held multiple posts at the company. He served the company as the chairman, president, and representative director. Presently, he is one of the members of the board at Keyence. AS of 2020, the net worth of Takizaki is $24 billion.

Toshiba

Toshiba : An Uproarious Success Story of a Brand in the World of Electronics

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Gone are the days, when mankind still managed to survive without the help of high tech equipment and power systems. Life in the 21st century would have been vulnerable if we didn’t have access to communication equipment to transfer signals, medical equipment to carry out surgeries, and most importantly, power systems to fuel up the machines. And, amongst the growing advancement in electronic products, Toshiba, a Japanese multinational corporation, has sailed the world through a wave of premiere wide-ranging devices, starting from household appliances to social infrastructure systems. The company has its headquarters based in Tokyo, Japan, with a robust number of subsidiaries.

The First Step, Tanaka Engineering Works

In 1873, Hisashige Tanaka, a renowned engineer of that time, was given the charge to build a telegraphic equipment to enhance the development in Japan. This contract led him to establish Tanaka Seisakusho (Tanaka Engineering Works), in 1875, the first Japanese company to build telegraphic equipment. The company also produced various electrical devices like switches for the communication systems. The company, later, came under the control of Tanaka’s adopted son.

On the other side, Japan still didn’t have enough technology to build its own electric lamps. But, in 1878, Ichisuke Fujioka, a student of Imperial College of Engineering, under the guidance of Prof. William Ayrton built Japan’s first arc lamp. He also built Japan’s first power generator with the help of Miyoshi Shoichi, a worker from Tanaka Seisakusho. Thus, in 1890, Hakunetsu-Sha Co., Ltd was established by Fujioka to produce light bulbs.

The Growth

Toshiba Headquarters Japan
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After the death of Tanaka in 1881, Tanaka Seisakusho was partly acquired by General Electric, followed by the acquisition of the company by Mitsui Bank in 1893, renaming it as Shibaura Seisakusho. Both the companies, Shibaura Seisakusho and Hakunetsu-Sha Co Ltd, were at their best phase when the Great Kanto earthquake hit the city and took away a lot of lives. A lot of employees of these two companies fall victim to this calamity, and hence, suffered a major loss.

During the 1930s, the government put a ban on the production of home appliances and shifted its interest to make war equipment. In 1939, Tokyo Denki (previously known as Hakunetsu-Sha) and Shibaura Seisakusho were merged to form Tokyo Shibaura Denki (now Toshiba) with General Electric Company holding 24% share.

The company expanded during the time of war, as it supplied military needs, radios and generators. During the postwar period, the company again started focusing on producing electrical and electronic equipment, and it expanded its business by exporting the machinery to Southeast Asia.

From the 1950s, Toshiba started growing exponentially and established a lot of industries. In 1984, the company was rebranded as Toshiba, replacing Tokyo Shibaura Denki. During the late 1990s, the company established further new firms, including Toshiba Music Industries, Toshiba International Corporation, Toshiba Electrical Equipment, Toshiba Chemical, and many more. The company was also responsible for developing some of Japan’s first electronics. The company built Japan’s first TAC digital computer followed by transistor television and microwave oven colour video phone, MRI system, DVD, and sub-notebook personal computer. These are some of the few inventions that helped the company pioneer the electronics industry.

2000-Today

To meet the growing demand in the North American market, Toshiba signed an agreement with Orion Electric in 2001 to supply TV and video products for the company. In 17th October 2006, Toshiba made one of the greatest acquisitions in the history of the company by acquiring Westinghouse Electric Company, the world’s largest nuclear power company for $5.4 billion. Toshiba had a 77% share of the company while The Shaw Group and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy industries had 20% and 3% share, respectively. In January 2009, Toshiba bought the Hard Disk Drive business of Fujitsu.

On 16th May 2011, Toshiba announced the acquisition of Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion, followed by the acquisition of IBM’s point-of-sale business $850 million. In December 2013, Toshiba established its own manufacturing unit in India after acquiring Vijai Electricals Limited Plant, Hyderabad, India. In January 2014, Toshiba acquired OCZ Storage Solutions, and in the same year, Toshiba and United Technologies came in a joint venture and expanded it outside Japan. Since then, Toshiba has acquired a lot of other companies, and even, faced many scandals. The company sold Westinghouse as it suffered a wide loss in 2017.

Currently, Toshiba produces one of the finest electronic products and services in the entire world and is getting stronger day by day. The company has around 140,000 employees as per the statistics of 2019. It believes in creating more efficient products in future and thrives for excellence.

Asus: A Provider of Wide-Range Electronics and One of the Top IT Companies from Asia

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Asus, a Taiwan-based multinational company, is known worldwide for manufacturing computer hardware and electronics. It has launched a vast range of smartphones, desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablets, networking equipment, and even, GPs devices. The company has reached apex for manufacturing ‘the best’ motherboard in the entire world, and also especially, by launching the Republic of Gamers, in 2006.

Asus was founded in 2nd April 1989 by Ted Hsu, M.T. Liao, Wayne Tsiah and T.H. Tung. The company has its headquarters in Beitou District, Taipei, Taiwan. In these 30 years of trade, the company has created a revolution in the IT industry with its impeccable designs and quality products.

History of the company

Before Asus was formed, the four founders worked together in Acer as hardware engineers. The company started with just the conversation over a coffee, and a strong passion to create something of their own. Right after the company was founded, they created their own motherboard using an Intel 486. It worked completely fine, despite even Intel faced issues with their own 486 motherboards. The first success of creating a motherboard was really an achievement, and starting from then, Asus received Intel’s prototypes before it reached any other competitors. Asus also launched Cache 386/33 motherboards in the same year.

Asus
Image Source: taiwantoday.tw

In 1990, the company launched the most popular and widely used motherboard in the world, EISA 486. These motherboards were used in IBM and ALR products. The launch of these high-quality tech products helped Asus secure an admirable position in the world of IT companies. In 1992, Asus unveiled the 32-bit SCSI interface that incorporated IC software and in the very year, the company established a formal partnership with Intel. The company developed advanced Intel Pentium (586) motherboard, in the year 1993, and by 1995, Asus became the leading producer of motherboards throughout the world. In the same year, the company launched the first Asus dual socket Intel Pentium motherboard.

By this time, the company was expanding rapidly, and especially, under the supervision of Jonney Shih, the Chairperson of Asus, the company started focusing mainly on more advanced designing. He made a noteworthy investment in R&D to develop new technologies and take the company much ahead of its competitors. In 1996, Asus launched motherboards that have supported both single and dual Pentium CPUs and became a public company on Taiwan Stock Exchange. In 1997, Asus launched its first notebook which was followed by the invention of Intel Pentium II motherboards, in 1998. Since, Asus expanded the business beyond Taiwan, in the year 2000, it established various service centres in the Netherlands, United States, Czech Republic, Australia and Japan.

In 2001, The Asus Royal Club Association was formed to provide 24/7 customer care and technical support. In the same year, the company launched Asus CUSL2-C Black Pearl (all-black PCB motherboard). In 2002, Asus launched Asus MyPal A600A, a PDA that supports Intel 400MHz PXA250 CPU.

In the next year, the company launched its first 3G flip phone followed by Asus W1, world’s first notebook with an in-built TV tuner and many other extravagant facilities in 2004. In 2004, the company also became the world’s leading VGA display maker. Asus also launched three-RAID dual-LAN and fist multi-GPU motherboards in the same year. In 2005, the company launched its first environment-friendly motherboard and first laptop with an in-built webcam.

In 2006, apart from focusing on various electronic product lines, the company developed a sub-brand known as the Republic of Gamers (ROG). A separate committee was built to look into ROG to bring a revolution in the gaming world and provide gamers with cutting-edge products and the best experience of gaming. So, the new motherboard was launched exclusively for the gaming enthusiasts, and since then, a series of products has been built under ROG.

In January 2006, Asus came in partnership with Lamborghini to built VX laptop series. On the same year, Asus also announced a collaboration with Gigabyte Technology. The launch of Eee PC, in 2007, brought immense success to the company, including many international awards. The company also released its first camera, gaming notebooks, external graphics card dock, and many modified motherboards under the sub-brand ROG. In 2008, Eee PC was named product of the year by Forbes India. In this year, Asus launched its cloud service and more power efficient motherboards. In 2010, the company released the world’s first halogen-free LCD monitor and many other products under the Eee PC and ROG.

Position of the Company Today

Currently, Asus sells a wide range of smartphones (ZenFone), tablets, laptops, GPS devices etc. In 2016, the company set a record of winning 4,385 awards, and it was also named World’s most admired companies by Fortune magazine. The company earned approximately US$13.3 billion in revenue in the same year. The company also changed its taglines quite a few times and is now settled with ‘In Search of Incredible’. The success of Asus had made Taiwan one of the predominant IT hubs in the entire world. And, with a current asset of more than $333.6 billion and 1,500 employees, the company maintains its uniqueness and marches forward to achieve perfection.