 | |
 Hoya headquarters in Tokyo | |
Native name | HOYA株式会社 |
|---|---|
| Company type | Public (K.K) |
| TYO:7741 TOPIX Large 70 Component TOPIX 100 Component | |
| Industry | Precision instruments |
| Founded | Hoya, Japan (November 1, 1941; 83 years ago (1941-11-01)) |
| Founders | Shoichi Yamanaka Shigeru Yamanaka |
| Headquarters | Shinjuku-ku,Tokyo 161-8525, Japan |
Key people | Eiichiro Ikeda (President andCEO) |
| Products | |
| Revenue |  JP¥ 490 billion (FY 2014) (US$ 4.1 billion) (FY 2014) |
| JP¥ 92.8 billion (FY 2014) (US$ 777 million) (FY 2014) | |
Number of employees | 34,635 (as of March 31, 2015) |
| Website | Official website |
| Footnotes / references [1][2][3] | |
Hoya Corporation (Hoya株式会社,Hōya Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese company manufacturingoptical products such asphotomasks, photomask blanks andhard disk drive platters, contact lenses and eyeglass lenses for the health-care market,[4] medical photonics,[5] lasers,photographic filters, medical flexibleendoscopy equipment, and software. Hoya Corporation is one of theForbes Global 2000 Leading Companies[6] and Industry Week 1000 Company.[7]
Hoya discussed a merger withPentax into Hoya Pentax HD Corporation during 2007. Hoya's primary goal was to strengthen its medical-related business by taking advantage of Pentax's technologies and expertise in the field of endoscopes, intraocular lenses, surgical loupes, biocompatible ceramics, etc. It was speculated that Pentax's camera business could be sold off after the merger. The merger was initially intended to be completed by October 1, 2007.[8] However, Pentax management decided to not pursue the originally planned share swap, and other options for a merger were discussed.[9] On May 25, the Pentax board of directors accepted Hoya's offer for a merger.[10] On August 6, 2007, Hoya completed a friendlytakeover bid for Pentax and acquired 90.59% of the company.[11] On October 29, 2007, Hoya and Pentax announced that Pentax, as the company ceasing to exist, will merge with and into Hoya on March 31, 2008.[12]
The acquired Pentax surveying instrument business (later IT Asahi Co., Ltd.) and camera business (nowPentax Ricoh Imaging Co., Ltd.) were sold to Taiwan Instrument Co., Ltd. in 2009 andRicoh Co., Ltd. in 2011, respectively.
On July 13, 2017, it was announced that Hoya had acquired ReadSpeaker. ReadSpeaker was founded in 1999 and headquartered inHuis ter Heide, Utrecht in the Netherlands at the time of the acquisition.[13] ReadSpeaker is atext-to-speech technology that allows users to highlight words that are being spoken, and users can save the speech in anMP3 format.[14] It has been used to transform websites to speech. TheInternational Herald Tribune employed the tool to turn intopodcasts the stories it publishes online.[15] In a paper for the 2016 International Conference on Software Process Improvement, José Ortega and his coauthors said, ReadSpeaker "works 100% online, is a good reference but is commercial and costs."[16]
MiYOSMART is an optical lens made by Hoya to correctmyopia. It was released in 2018.[17] A three-year-study found that it reduces myopia by 60% in children aged eight to thirteen years.[18]
Media related toHoya Corporation at Wikimedia Commons
