Honda 1 Honda Honda Motor Company, Ltd. Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki-gaisha 本田技研工業株式会社 Type Public [1] [2] (TYO: 7267 ) & (NYSE: HMC ) Industry • Automotive • Aviation Founded 24 September 1948 Founder(s) • Soichiro Honda • Takeo Fujisawa Headquarters Minato, Tokyo, Japan Area served Worldwide Key people • Satoshi Aoki (Chairman) • Takanobu Ito (CEO) Products • Automobiles • Motorcycles • Scooters • ATVs • Electrical Generators • Water pumps • Lawn and Garden Equipments • Tillers • Outboard motors • Robotics • Jets • Jet Engines • Thin-film solar cells [3] Revenue US$120.27 billion (FY 2009) [3] Operating income US$2.34 billion (FY 2009) [3] Net income US$1.39 billion (FY 2009) [3] Total assets US$124.98 billion (FY 2009) [3] Total equity US$40.6 billion (FY 2009) [4] Employees 181,876 Subsidiaries • Acura • Honda Aircraft Company [5] Website Honda Worldwide Honda Motor Company, Ltd. (本田技研工業株式会社 Honda Giken Kōgyō KK, IPA: [honꜜda] ( listen); [1] English: /ˈhɒndə/) (TYO: 7267 ) is a Japanese multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of Honda 2 automobiles and motorcycles. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959,[6] [7] as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than 14 million internal combustion engines each year.[8] Honda surpassed Nissan in 2001 to become the second-largest Japanese automobile manufacturer.[9] [10] As of August 2008, Honda surpassed Chrysler as the fourth largest automobile manufacturer in the United States.[11] Honda is the sixth largest automobile manufacturer in the world. Honda was the first Japanese automobile manufacturer to release a dedicated luxury brand, Acura, in 1986. Aside from their core automobile and motorcycle businesses, Honda also manufactures garden equipment, marine engines, personal watercraft and power generators, amongst others. Since 1986, Honda has been involved with artificial intelligence/robotics research and released their ASIMO robot in 2000. They have also ventured into aerospace with the establishment of GE Honda Aero Engines in 2004 and the Honda HA-420 HondaJet, scheduled to be released in 2011. Honda spends about 5% of its revenues into R&D.[12] History From a young age, Honda's founder, Soichiro Honda (本田 宗一郎, Honda Sōichirō) had a great interest in automobiles. He worked as a mechanic at a Japanese tuning shop, Art Shokai, where he tuned cars and entered them in races. A self-taught engineer, he later worked on a piston design which he hoped to sell to Toyota. The first drafts of his design were rejected, and Soichiro worked painstakingly to perfect the design, even going back to school and pawning his wife's jewelry for collateral. Eventually, he won a contract with Toyota and built a factory to construct pistons for them, which was destroyed in an earthquake. Due to a gasoline shortage during World War II, Honda was unable to use his car, and his novel idea of attaching a small engine to his bicycle attracted much curiosity. He then established the Honda Technical Research Institute in Hamamatsu, Japan, to develop and produce small 2-cycle motorbike engines. Calling upon 18,000 bicycle shop owners across Japan to take part in revitalizing a nation torn apart by war, Soichiro received enough capital to engineer his first motorcycle, the Honda Cub. This marked the beginning of Honda Motor Company, which would grow a short time later to be the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles by 1964. The first production automobile from Honda was the T360 mini pick-up truck, which went on sale in August 1963.[13] Powered by a small 356 cc straight-4 gasoline engine, it was classified under the cheaper Kei car tax bracket. The first production car from Honda was the S500 sports car, which followed the T360 into production in October 1963. Its chain driven rear wheels point to Honda's motorcycle origins. Honda 3 Corporate profile and divisions Honda is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Their shares trade on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, as well as exchanges in Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kyoto, Fukuoka, London, Paris and Switzerland. The company has assembly plants around the globe. These plants are located in China, the United States, Pakistan, Canada, England, Japan, Belgium, Brazil, New Zealand, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Turkey and Perú. As of July 2010, 89 percent of Honda and Acura vehicles sold in the United States were built in North American plants, up from 82.2 percent a year earlier. This shields profits from the yen’s advance to a 15-year high against the dollar.[11] Honda's Net Sales and Other Operating Revenue by Geographical Regions in 2007[14] Honda headquarters building in Japan Geographic Region Total revenue (in millions of ¥) Japan 1,681,190 North America 5,980,876 Europe 1,236,757 Asia 1,283,154 Others 905,163 American Honda Motor Company is based in Torrance, California. Honda Canada Inc. is headquartered in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, and is building new corporate headquarters in Markham, Ontario, scheduled to relocate in 2008;[15] their manufacturing division, Honda of Canada Manufacturing, is based in Alliston, Ontario. Honda has also created joint ventures around the world, such as Honda Siel Cars and Hero Honda Motorcycles in India,[16] Guangzhou Honda and Dongfeng Honda in China, and Honda Atlas in Pakistan. Current market position With high fuel prices and a weak U.S. economy in June 2008, Honda reported a 1% sales increase while its rivals, including the Detroit Big Three and Toyota, have reported double-digit losses. Honda's sales were up almost 20 percent from the same month last year. The Civic and the Accord were in the top five list of sales.[17] [18] Analysts have attributed this to two main factors. First, Honda's product lineup consists of mostly small to mid-size, highly fuel-efficient vehicles. Secondly, over the last ten years, Honda has designed its factories to be flexible, in that they can be easily retooled to produce any Honda model that may be in-demand at the moment. Nonetheless, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota, were still not immune to the global financial crisis of 2008, as these companies reduced their profitability forecasts. The economic crisis has been spreading to other important players in the vehicle related industries as well.[19] [20] In November 2009 the Nihon Keizai Shinbun reported that Honda Motor exports have fallen 64.1%.[21] At the 2008 Beijing Auto Show, Honda presented the Li Nian ("concept" or "idea") 5-door hatchback and announced that they were looking to develop an entry-level brand exclusively for the Chinese market similar to Toyota's Scion brand in the USA.[22] The brand would be developed by a 50-50 joint-venture established in 2007 with Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group.[23] [24] Honda 4 Following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 Honda announced plans to halve production at its UK plants.[25] The decision was made to put staff at the Swindon plant on a 2 day week until the end of May as the manufacturer struggled to source supplies from Japan. It's thought around 22,500 cars were produced during this period. Leadership • 1948–1973 — Soichiro Honda • 1973–1983 — Kiyoshi Kawashima • 1983–1990 — Tadashi Kume • 1990–1998 — Nobuhiko Kawamoto • 1998–2004 — Hiroyuki Yoshino • 2004–2009 — Takeo Fukui • since 2009 — Takanobu Ito Products Automobiles Honda's global lineup consists of the Fit, Civic, Accord, Insight, CR-V, and Odyssey. An early proponent of developing vehicles to cater to different needs and markets worldwide, Honda's lineup varies by country and may feature vehicles exclusive to that region. A few examples are the latest Acura TL luxury sedan and the Ridgeline, Honda's first light-duty uni-body pickup truck. Both were engineered primarily in North America and are exclusively produced and sold 2008 Honda Accord (USA spec) there. The Civic is a line of compact cars developed and manufactured by Honda. In North America, the Civic is the second-longest continuously running nameplate from a Japanese manufacturer; only its perennial rival, the Toyota Corolla, introduced in 1968, has been in production longer.[26] The Civic, along with the Accord and Prelude, comprised Honda's vehicles sold in North America until the 1990s, when the model lineup was expanded. Having gone through several generational changes, the Civic has become larger and more upmarket, and it currently slots between the Fit and Accord. Eight Generation Honda Civic (Asian Version) Honda increased global production in September 2008 to meet demand for small cars in the U.S. and emerging markets. The company is shuffling U.S. production to keep factories busy and boost car output, while building fewer minivans and sport utility vehicles as light truck sales fall.[27] Honda produces Civic hybrid, a hybrid electric vehicle that competes with the Toyota Prius, the Insight and CR-Z. Its first entrance into the pickup segment, the light duty Ridgeline, won Truck of the Year from Motor Trend magazine in 2006. Also in 2006, the redesigned Civic won Car of the Year from the magazine, giving Honda a rare double win of Motor Trend honors. It is reported that Honda plans to increase hybrid sales in Japan to more than 20% of its total sales in fiscal year 2011, from 14.8% in previous year.[28] Honda 5 Five of United States Environmental Protection Agency's top ten most fuel-efficient cars from 1984 to 2010 comes from Honda, more than any other automakers. The five models are: 2000-2006 Honda Insight (53 mpg /4.4 L/100 km; 64 mpg combined), 1986-1987 Honda Civic Coupe HF (46 mpg /5.1 L/100 km; -US -imp -US 55 mpg combined), 1994-1995 Honda Civic hatchback VX (43 mpg /5.5 L/100 km; 52 mpg mpg combined), -imp -US -imp 2006- Honda Civic Hybrid (42 mpg /5.6 L/100 km; 50 mpg combined), and 2010- Honda Insight -US -imp (41 mpg /5.7 L/100 km; 49 mpg combined).[29] The ACEEE has also rated the Civic GX as the greenest car in -US -imp America for seven consecutive years.[30] Motorcycles Honda is the largest motorcycle manufacturer in Japan and has been since it started production in 1955.[31] At its peak in 1982, Honda manufactured almost 3 million motorcycles annually.