Yamaha Corporation

Yamaha is one of the world's leading manufacturers of pianos, digital musical instruments, and wind, string, and percussion instruments. At the same time, the Company has grown through a broad spectrum of business activities, including electronic devices and equipment, professional audio equipment, and audiovisual equipment. To continue growing in the 21st century, the Yamaha Group will make a concerted effort to become a truly global enterprise that fulfills its corporate mission of contributing to enriching the quality of life of people worldwide. Key Dates: Yamaha founds Yamaha Organ Manufacturing Company, Japan's first maker of Western musical instruments. Japan's Education Ministry mandates musical education for Japanese children, expanding Yamaha's business. Company produces its first motorcycle through an affiliated company, Yamaha Motor Company, Ltd. Company changes its name to Yamaha Corporation to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the firm. Yamaha posts a net loss of $384 million for the fiscal year ending in March; newly installed President Shuji Ito initiates a restructuring program. Yamaha Corporation, one of Japan's most diversified companies, is the world's largest maker of musical instruments, including pianos and keyboards, wind instruments, string and percussion instruments, and digital musical instruments. Since 1950 the company has also become a major producer of audio products, semiconductors and other electronics products, furniture, sporting goods, and specialty metals. Yamaha also runs music schools in Japan and 40 other countries, owns and operates a string of resorts located throughout Japan, and holds a 33 percent stake in the separately managed Yamaha Motor Company, Ltd., the world's second largest producer of motorcycles, and a producer as well of boats, snowmobiles, golf carts, all-terrain vehicles, engines, and industrial robots. Nearly three-fourths of Yamaha Corporation's net sales are derived from its musical instrument and audio products operations. Yamaha founder Torakusu Yamaha's venture reflected late 19th-century Japan's enthusiasm for new technologies and the ability of its middle-class entrepreneurs to develop products based on them. Raised in what is now the Wakayama Prefecture, Yamaha received an unusual education for the time from his samurai father, a surveyor with broad interests in astronomy and mechanics and a remarkable library. The Meiji Restoration, a government-subsidized effort to hasten technological development in the late 19th century, put educated people such as Yamaha in a position to capitalize on the new growth. As part of his job, Yamaha repaired surgical equipment in Hamamatsu, a small Pacific coastal fishing town. Because of their area's isolation, a township school there asked him in 1887 to repair their prized U.S.-made Mason & Hamlin reed organ. Seeing the instrument's commercial potential in Japan, Yamaha produced his own functional version of the organ within a year and then set up a new business in Hamamatsu to manufacture organs for Japanese primary schools. In 1889 he established the Yamaha Organ Manufacturing Company, Japan's first maker of Western musical instruments. At the same time, the government granted Hamamatsu township status, which provided it with rail service and made it a regional commerce center. Western musical traditions interested the Japanese government, which fostered and catered to growing enthusiasm for Western ideas. While Yamaha's technical education enabled him to manufacture a product, government investment in infrastructure made it possible for him to create a business. Yamaha Organ used modern mass-production methods, and by 1889 it employed 100 people and produced 250 organs annually. During the 1890s the more inexpensive upright piano surpassed the reed organ in popularity in U.S. homes. Yamaha saw the potential of this market. In 1897 he renamed his company Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd., which literally means Japan musical