Hitachi Information

Hitachi, Ltd. (株式会社日立製作所, Kabushiki-gaisha Hitachi Seisaku-sho, lit. "Stock Company Hitachi Manufacturing Plant") (Japanese pronunciation: [çiꜜtatɕi]) is a Japanese multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (Hitachi Gurūpu) and forms part of the DKB Group of companies. Hitachi is a highly diversified company that operates eleven business segments: Information and Telecommunication Systems, Social Infrastructure, High Functional Materials and Components, Financial Services, Power Systems, Electronic Systems and Equipment, Automotive Systems, Railway and Urban Systems, Digital Media and Consumer Products, Construction Machinery and Other Components and Systems.

Hitachi is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX indices. It is ranked 38th in the 2012 Fortune Global 500 and 129th in the 2012 Forbes Global 2000.

Hitachi was founded in 1910 by electrical engineer Namihei Odaira in Ibaraki Prefecture. The companys first product was Japans first 4-kilowatt (5 hp) induction motor, initially developed for use in copper mining.

The company began as an in-house venture of Fusanosuke Kuharas mining company in Hitachi, Ibaraki. Odaira moved headquarters to Tokyo in 1918. Odaira coined the companys toponymic name by superimposing two kanji characters: hi meaning “sun” and tachi meaning “rise.”

World War II had a significant impact on the company with many of its factories being destroyed by Allied bombing raids, and discord after the war. Founder Odaira was removed from the company. Hitachis reconstruction efforts after the war were hindered by a labor strike in 1950. The company saw an increase in business during the Korean War due to defense contracts offered by the American military. Meanwhile, Hitachi went public in 1949.

Hitachi America, Ltd. was established in 1959. Hitachi Europe, Ltd. was established in 1982.

In March 2011, Hitachi agreed to sell its hard disk drive subsidiary, HGST, to Western Digital (WD) for a combination of cash and shares worth US$4.3 billion. Due to concerns of a duopoly of WD and Seagate Technology by the EU Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, Hitachis 3.5" HDD division was sold to Toshiba. The transaction was completed in March 2012.

In January 2012, Hitachi announced it would stop producing televisions in Japan. In September 2012, Hitachi announced that it had invented a long-term data solution out of quartz glass that was capable of preserving information for millions of years. In October 2012, Hitachi agreed to acquire the United Kingdom-based nuclear energy company Horizon Nuclear Power, which plans to construct up to six nuclear power plants in the UK, from E.ON and RWE for £700 million. In November 2012, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries agreed to merge their thermal power generation businesses into a joint venture to be owned 65% by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and 35% by Hitachi. The joint venture began operations in February 2014.

In October 2015, Hitachi completed a deal with Johnson Controls to form a joint-venture that would takeover Hitachis HVAC business. Hitachi maintained a 40% stake of the resulting company, the Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning. In May 2016, Hitachi announced it was investing $2.8 billion into its IoT interests.

In February 2017, Hitachi and Honda announced a partnership to develop, produce and sell motors for electric vehicles. On March 14, 2018, Zoomdata announced its partnership with Hitachi INS Software to help develop big data analytics market in Japan. In December 2018, Hitachi Ltd. announced it would take over ABB Ltd.s power grid division for $6.4 billion.

(Pre-war)

Note: A new product from Hitachi called Memory glass was to be introduced in 2015. It is a high density information storage medium utilizing laser etched/readable Fused quartz.

Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 and the extended temporary closure of most Japanese nuclear plants, Hitachis nuclear business became unprofitable and in 2016 Hitachi CEO Toshiaki Higashihara argued Japan should consider a merger of the various competing nuclear businesses. Hitachi is taking for 2016 an estimated ¥65 billion write-off in value of a SILEX technology laser uranium enrichment joint venture with General Electric. In 2019 Hitachi suspended the ABWR development by its British subsidiary Horizon Nuclear Power as it did not provide an adequate "economic rationality as a private enterprise" to proceed.

Hitachi Communication Technologies America provides communications products and services for the telecommunications, cable TV, utility, enterprise, industrial and other markets.

Hitachi Consulting is an international management and technology consulting firm with headquarters in Dallas, Texas. It was founded in 2000.

Hitachi Vantara is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi which provides hardware, software and services to help companies manage their digital data. Its flagship products are the Virtual Storage Platform (for enterprise storage), Hitachi Unified Storage VM for large sized companies, Hitachi Unified Storage for small and mid-sized companies, Hitachi Content Platform (archiving and cloud architecture), Hitachi Command Suite (for storage management), Hitachi TrueCopy and Hitachi Universal Replicator (for remote replication), and the Hitachi NAS Platform.

Since September 19, 2017, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has become part of Hitachi Vantara, a new company that unifies the operations of Pentaho, Hitachi Data Systems and Hitachi Insight Group. The company name "Hitachi Data Systems" (HDS) and its logo is no longer used in the market.

Hitachi manufactures many types of electronic products including TVs, Camcorders, Projectors and Recording Media under its own brand name.

Hitachi provides various defense related/derived products and services.

Among other things, Hitachi Metals supplies materials for aircraft engines and fuselage components (e.g. landing gear), along with finished components for same and other aerospace applications. It also provides materials, components and tools for the automotive and electronics industries.

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