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| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Automotive(Passenger/Commercial Vehicle) parts |
| Founded | December 16, 1949; 75 years ago (1949-12-16) |
| Headquarters | Kariya, Aichi, Japan |
Key people | Koji Arima [jp][1] (chairman & CEO) Shinnosuke Hayashi [jp] (president and COO) Yasushi Matsui (vice president) |
| Revenue |  ¥5,108.291 billion (2018)[2] |
| ¥412.676 billion (2018)[2] | |
| ¥320.561 billion (2018)[2] | |
| Total assets | ¥5,764.417 billion (2018)[2] |
| Total equity | ¥3,447.082 billion (2017)[2] |
| Owners | Toyota Motor (24.77%)[3] Toyota Industries (8.72%) |
| Website | www |
DENSO Corporation (株式会社デンソー,Kabushiki-Gaisha Densō) is a globalautomotive components manufacturer headquartered in the city ofKariya,Aichi Prefecture, Japan.[4]
After becoming independent fromToyota Motor, the company was founded as Nippon Denso Co. Ltd. (日本電装株式会社,Nippon Densō Kabushiki-Gaisha) in 1949. About 25% of the company is owned by Toyota.[5] Despite being a part of theToyota Group of companies, as of the year ending March 2016, sales to the Toyota Group accounted for less than 50% of total revenue (44% of revenue originated from other car manufacturers in Japan, Germany, the U.S. and China).[6] In 2023, DENSO was the secondlargest auto parts supplier in the world.[7]
In 2022, DENSO was listed at #278 on theFortune Global 500 list with a total revenue of $49.0 billion and 167,950 employees.[8]
As of 2021,[update] DENSO consisted of 200 consolidatedsubsidiaries (64 inJapan, 23 inNorth America, 32 inEurope, 74 inAsia, and seven inOceania and other regions).
The name DENSO (電装,densō) is ablend word of theJapanese terms for "electricity" (電気,denki) and "device" (装置,sōchi).
The company develops and manufactures various auto parts, includinggasoline anddiesel engine components,hybrid vehicle components,climate control systems, instrument clusters,airbag systems, pre-crash radar systems, andspark plugs. DENSO also develops and manufactures non-automotive components, such as household heating equipment and industrial robots. A Denso industrial robot gained wide public attention in Japan when it conducted a game ofshogi against professional players.[9][10]
In June 2020, DENSO announced the opening of its "Electrification Innovation Center" at its plant inAnjō. The facility will support the company's development of products and technologies for electric and hybrid vehicles.[11]
In 2014, DENSO's global sales were distributed as follows:
DENSO Wave is a subsidiary that produces automatic identification products (barcode readers and related products),industrial robots, andprogrammable logic controllers.[12] They are noted for creating the two-dimensionalQR code, are a member of theJapan Robot Association, and support theORiN standard.
In 1992Masahiro Hara, an engineer in the Research & Development department, was tasked with developing a new 2D code system to streamline the tracking of components used in the automotive industry. Traditional barcodes had limitations, including their low data capacity and sensitivity to damage, such as oil stains, which caused scanning errors. To overcome these challenges, Hara began researching and, in 1994, invented theQR code.
Inspired by the black-and-white patterns of the Japanese strategy gameGo, the QR code can store 200 times more characters than a standard barcode and remains readable even if 30% of its surface is damaged, thanks to itserror correction mechanism. Originally referred to as the "ND code" (for Nippon Denso), it was later renamed QR code, short for Quick Response, to emphasize its fast readability. The QR code was released under a free license, which allowed it to gain widespread adoption beyond the automotive sector, expanding into industries such as logistics, commerce, marketing, and healthcare.[13]
In the early 2000s, QR codes began to be integrated into mobile phones in Japan, where they were initially used to link to websites. This marked a turning point for the global spread of the technology, further accelerated by the rise of smartphones around 2010.
By 2024, during the 30th anniversary of the QR code, Hara expressed pride in seeing his invention adopted worldwide across diverse fields, including design, healthcare, and even tattoos. He also highlighted its cultural appropriation by artists like qargo, who creatively combined QR codes withLego bricks to produce interactive and unique portraits that tell inspiring stories.
For his groundbreaking work,Masahiro Hara was awarded theEuropean Inventor Award in 2014.
Denso International America is the American subsidiary of Denso.
In 1970, DENSO Corporation decided to expand overseas from Kariya, Japan, toNorth America. DENSO Sales California, Inc., was founded inHawthorne, California, in March 1971. The company was staffed with only 12 associates, four of them being Americans. The objective of DENSO Sales California was to promote their air conditioner systems as options in Japanese-made vehicles.
In May 1975, DENSO Corporation opened a sales division, Denso Sales, inSouthfield, Michigan.
In September 1975, DENSO International America opened a service center inCedar Falls, Iowa. This was opened due to an agricultural parts contract withJohn Deere that includedstarter motors and meters.
DENSO International America employs over 17,000 people at 38 locations between North, Central, and South America. At year end, on March 31, 2008, combined sales totaled $8.3 billion for all American locations.[14][15]
As Denso is a part of the Toyota Group, it also assists Toyota in participating and developing their cars for differentmotorsports categories. Denso manufactures customised electronics and different auto-parts specifically for Toyota-Lexus motorsports development divisionsToyota Racing Development and the European motorsports facility of the companyToyota Gazoo Racing previously named Toyota Motorsports GmbH located in Germany. Denso plays a vital role as anOEM by specifically engineering auto-parts and electronics for Toyota in motorsports which mainly include spark plugs, starter motors,fuel pumps,alternators,Engine Control Module (ECM) computer systems, engine & transmission sensors and many other high-performance automotive and motor racing equipments and accessories for Toyota to compete in a variety of motorsports categories which includeNASCAR,Formula One (from 2002-2009),World Rally Championship, andWorld Endurance Championship. TheToyota TS030 Hybrid, using a Densokinetic energy recovery system, finished second in the2013 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Denso products are also used in many local Japanese motorsports, includingSuper Formula andSuper GT.
On January 30, 2012, theUS Justice Department announced after two years of investigation that it had discovered part of a massiveprice fixing scheme in which Denso andYazaki played a significant role. The conspiracy, which fixed prices and allocated components to such car manufacturers asToyota andHonda, extended fromMichigan to Japan, where it was also under investigation. Denso agreed to pay a fine of $78 million.[16][17]
In August 2020, a class-action lawsuit was filed inQuebec over alleged defective fuel pumps in a number ofAcura, Honda,Lexus,Subaru, and Toyota vehicle models. A separate fuel pump lawsuit was filed for the remaining areas of Canada.[18]
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