NEC

Nihon(Japan) Electronics Corporation. They make good quality televisions, computers (and monitors to match), toys, gadgets, microchips and, in the past, videogame systems like the TurboGrafx 16/PC Engine and PC Engine FX. Once considered 'cooler' by the Japanese than Sony, partly because of Sony's invention of the Beta videocassette standard, NEC has been losing market share to its rival since Sony's launch of the PlayStation in 1995. Located in Tokyo, Japan.

NEC CORPORATION
The NEC group was founded in Tokyo 1899. This gives that NEC is not only one of the oldest companies in the industry. The fact that they are ranked as number 60 on Fortune's list containing the 500 biggest companies in the world also shows that they are among the largest. They are also the only company among their competitors that is ranked among the 10 largest companies within all three of their business areas; telecommunication, computers and industrial systems and components.

NEC has a product range of approximately 15.000 products (compared to Siemens who has almost 1.000.000 products) all over the world, and it ranges from satellite stations to microchips. The NEC group’s turnover is almost 43 billions USD and this is generated by almost 155.000 employees who are working at approximately 250 companies all over the world (1996).

NEC SCANDINAVIA AB
As a Swede I felt for adding this. Their first office in Scandinavia was opened in 1984. Today they have two offices in the Nordic/Baltic area, which is the geographical area that NEC Scandinavia is responsible for. These offices are located in Stockholm, which also is their head-office and Oslo. The turnover for the markets in the Nordic/Baltic area is approximately 325 millions SEK (1996). (1 USD = 10,98 SEK, 2001).

NEC Corporation's domestic history began in 1963 when the first U.S. office was opened in New York City. In 1977, NEC established NEC Information Systems, a computer software and systems development and marketing operation. In 1981, NEC established NEC Home Electronics, a manufacturer and marketer of home electronics equipment. The two subsidiaries merged in 1989, creating NEC Technologies. The newly formed company integrated its resources to develop, market and manufacture comprehensive lines of computer and peripheral products.

During the summer of 1996, NEC Corporation combined its international PC operations (handheld, notebook and desktop PC and server groups) of NEC Technologies with consumer PC giant Packard Bell, Inc. to create a new company, Packard Bell NEC, Inc. (PBNEC). In July 1998, NEC Corporation made an additional investment to become the majority stockholder in PBNEC.

January 2000 marked the beginning of a new market strategy for NEC computers systems globally. NEC consolidated its PC/server business worldwide and is focusing attention on the commercial marketplace. Through the reorganization, NEC established NEC Computers International B.V. (NEC-CI) as a new company to manage NEC's global PC/server business outside of Japan and China. Based in The Netherlands, NEC-CI is a subsidiary of NEC Corporation and is responsible for operations in Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. By consolidating operations under a global structure, enterprise customers with operations worldwide will be better served by standardizing on the NEC line of computing products. NEC-CI expects to generate revenues exceeding $2 billion in the year 2000.

As part of the move, the Packard Bell brand was retired in the United States, where the company has exited the retail PC market. NEC Computers Inc. (NEC-CI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of NEC-CI, was created to assume the role of NEC Computer Systems Division, which catered to the commercial PC market in North America. Headquartered in Sacramento, California, the company offers a wide range of global computer products-from mobile PCs to desktop systems for the office, and high-end servers.