About
Kyocera's entire business can be traced to one material decision: in 1959, Kazuo Inamori founded the company in Kyoto to make ceramic insulators for television components — betting that technical ceramics, which resist heat, wear, and electricity in ways metals cannot, would become the quiet backbone of modern industry. The bet paid off beyond imagination. Today Kyocera's ceramics are inside smartphone camera modules, semiconductor packages, automotive sensors, and cutting tools that machine titanium at high speed. Its electronics components division makes the MLCCs, crystal devices, and connectors found in virtually every electronic product, while its document solutions business (printers and multifunction copiers) and solar energy division complete a remarkably diversified portfolio. Kyocera employs about 70,000 people and generates annual revenue near ¥2 trillion. It is also famous in business circles for the Inamori management philosophy — 'do the right thing as a human being' — and for an unusual corporate structure: the company famously has no borrowing, a balance-sheet discipline most industrial firms only dream of.
Also known as: Kyocera
