Furuno

Furuno Electric Co., Ltd.

Native name	古野電気株式会社
Type	Public KK
Traded as	TYO: 6814
Industry	Electronics
Founded	Nagasaki (1938 (1938))
Founder	Kiyotaka Furuno
Headquarters	9-52 Ashihara-cho, Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture 662-8580, Japan
Key people	Yukio Furuno (President)
Products	Marine electronics Medical equipment Meteorological instrumentation
Revenue	US$ 734 million (FY 2013) (JPY 75.66 billion) (FY 2013)
Net income	US$ -6.4 million (FY 2013) (JPY -660 million) (FY 2013)
Number of employees	2,836 (consolidated, as of February 28, 2014)
Website	Official website
Footnotes / references ^[1]

Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. (古野電気株式会社, Furuno Denki Kabushiki-gaisha) (commonly known as Furuno) is a Japanese electronics company whose main products are marine electronics, including radar systems, fish finders and navigational instruments. The company also manufactures global positioning systems, medical equipment and meteorological monitoring and analysis systems.^[2]

Furuno was founded in Nagasaki, Japan in 1938 and has subsidiaries in the USA, Europe and China.

Recently the company's GNSS Receiver Modules were used in radio controlled flying quadcopters.^[3]

History

1930s

1938 Furuno Electric Shokai was founded in Nagasaki, Japan

1940s

1948 Commercialized the world's first practical fish finder. It established Furuno Electric Industries in Nagasaki. Began manufacturing and selling fish finders.

1950s

1951 Established Suisan Electric Industries.
1952 Developed radio communication equipment for fisheries.
1955 Established Furuno Electric by taking over operations from Furuno Electric Industries (capitalized at 8 million yen).
1958 Developed a numeric display type Loran (long-range navigation) receiver.
1959 Developed radar for vessels.

1960s

1961 Developed the world's first net sonde. Capital increased to 120 million yen.
1964 Relocated headquarters from Nagasaki to Nishinomiya Factory in Hyogo prefecture.
1966 Developed telesounder.
1967 Developed full automatic sonar, facsimile receiver and direction finder.
1968 Developed Loran receiver for aircraft.

1970s

1971 Developed the Omega receiver.
1972 Received NMEA's fiscal 1971 Best Product Award. Developed Japan's first doppler sonar.
1973 Developed autopilot system, satellite positioning equipment and simple radio telephone.
1974 Developed radio navigation system and full-circle scanning sonar. Developed gyrocompass. Established Furuno Norge in Norway.
1976 Developed ultra-compact radar and half-circle scanning sonar.
1978 Established Furuno U.S.A in the U.S.
1979 Completed Miki Factory. Established Furuno Ltd. in the U.K.

1980s

1980 Developed the world's first current indicator, videoplotter and compact facsimile receiver
1981 Developed scientific sounder.
1982 Listed on the Second Section of the Osaka Securities Exchange.
1983 Increased capital to 6,200 million yen.
1984 Moved to the First Section of the Osaka Securities Exchange. Developed facsimile receiver and bottom mapping system. Acquired management control of Kyoritsu Radio and Kyoritsu Radio Service.
1985 Developed marine radar, color net recorder, bottom sonar, ARPA.
1986 Developed the world's first bird radar. Developed GPS navigation system.
1987 Developed fishery monitoring radar, automated bonito pole-and-line fishing system. Developed the world's first video LORAN. Established Furuno Danmark in Denmark. Established Furuno Sverige in Sweden.
1989 Completed Furuno Int Center.

1990s

1990 Developed equipment for the research submersible Shinkai 6500 system. Increased capital to 7,535 million yen. Launched Spirit of Furuno 21, a fishing boat-type testing vessel. Established Furuno France in France.
1991 Developed wireless marine horn, radar for fishery and digital mapping system.
1992 Developed kinematic GPS and GPS for aircraft. Established Furuno Espana in Spain.
1993 Commercialized a teleterminal DGPS.
1994 Developed golf distance meter and integrated navigation display.
1995 Developed integrated bridge system, GPS time server.
1998 Developed radar plotter-fish finder combo.
1997 Developed new terrain remote monitoring system.

2000s

2000 Developed satellite compass.
2001 Developed NavNet Series.
2002 Developed Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Voyage Data Recorder (VDR). Developed fully automated Clinical Chemistry Analyzer. Established Furuno Navintra (now Furuno Finland) after acquiring Finnish company Navintra. Began in-house production of pulse magnetron.
2003 Developed GPS-steered Time and Frequency Generator. Began in-house sales of ETCs. Won a long-term supply contract for the NavNet series of network-compatible navigational equipment from the US Coast Guard. Established Furuno Softech (Dalian) in Dalian, China.
2004 Developed the Tanken-Maru system, a fish finder for recreational fishing boats. Completed the world's largest test tank at the Miki Factory. Began joint development of DNA microarray synthesizers with U.S. company CombiMatrix Corporation. Established Furuno Polska in Poland. Opened the Furuno European Distribution Centre (FEDC) in the Netherlands. Launched Pegasus, a test vessel for a pleasure boat market
2005 Developed the world's first dual-frequency searchlight sonar. Opened Furuno Dong Guan factory in China. Established Furuno Deutschland in German. Established Furuno Eurus LLC in Russian Federation. Established the Furuno INS Training Center (INSTC) in Copenhagen, Denmark, to train crew members of commercial vessels how to operate Integrated Navigation System.
2006 Developed the 12.1-inch multi-color LCD radar FR-8002 series. Developed FCV-620, a fish finder with a 5.6-inch LCD for the pleasure boat market. Purchased a 49% stake in French company SIGNET S.A. and convertible bonds. Established Furuno Europe as a local subsidiary in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Developed S-VDR (Simplified Voyage Data Recorder) VR-3000S. Developed ultra sensitive GPS receiver for mobile communication device market.
2007 Developed AIS (Automatic Identification System) receiver FA-30 for fishing vessels and recreational boats

Established Furuno Shanghai in China.

2009 Acquired San Francisco based eRide, Inc. a fabless semiconductor company making GPS chipsets.^[4]

Gallery

The Furuno factory in Miki city

Furuno control panels on a ship

A Furuno marine radar on a ship (visible on the left)

An old model of sonar made by the company

Notes

↑ "Company Outline". Furuno. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
↑ "Company Snapshot". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
↑ "Furuno's Latest Multi-GNSS Receiver Module Adopted for Use in Parrot's New Quadricopter "Bebop Drone"". Inside Unmanned Systems. Autonomous Media, LLC. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
↑ "Gary L. Fischer Helps eRide; Caps 8 Plus Years". Marketwired. September 18, 2014. Retrieved March 26, 2015.

External links

Furuno Global page (English)
Furuno Global page (Japanese)
Furuno France page (French)
Furuno office in Russia (Russian)
Furuno ship supply in Russia (Russian)
"Company history books (Shashi)". Shashi Interest Group. April 2016. Wiki collection of bibliographic works on Furuno

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