Honda Motor Company, Ltd. ( Japanese: 本田技研工業株式会社 , Honda Giken Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha ? , Honda Technology Research Institute Company, Limited)
listen ( help · info ) (TYO: 7267) is a Japanese multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.
Honda is the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles 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. Honda surpassed Nissan in 2001 to become the second-largest Japanese automobile manufacturer. As of August 2008, Honda surpassed Chrysler as the fourth largest automobile manufacturer in the United States. 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.
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 gas 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. 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. Its chain driven rear wheels point to Honda's motorcycle origins.
Trademark Origins
Whereas Honda's trademark had been registered in Japan since November 13, 1953 it wasn't until a decade later that the motorcycle and automobile company filed for trademark registration in the United States. On Friday, August 30, 1963, Honda Giken Gokyo Kabushiki Kaisha of Tokyo, Japan filed for two trademarks with the USPTO.
One trademark was for the word mark of HM within an oval geometric shape. The application, signed by founder Soichiro Honda, was filed in the primary category of non-metallic building material products. Description included for the HM trademark was for land vehicles-namely, motor cars, motorcycles, and motor trucks. Trademark registration was granted on September 15, 1964.
Honda filed a second trademark with the USPTO on the same date of August 30, 1963. The second mark was for the winged HM design logo that Honda had registered in Japan since June 15, 1962. The Winged HM mark is in the non-metallic building material products as well and applied to goods and services for land vehicles-namely, motor cars, motorcycles, and motor trucks. The USPTO granted registration on September 15, 1964.
Of note, the USPTO initially issued an Office Action to Honda rejecting their application for both the HM and Winged HM marks. The U.S. trademark office cited two other HM trademarks that would likely cause confusion, mistake, or deception. Additionally they determined that the identification of goods was too broad and indefinite. One of the confusing HM trademarks was U.S. Registration No. 748,4794 for pneumatic tires and owned by B.F. Goodrich. The other confusing trademark was for Holman & Moody for automobile bodies and frames, U.S. Registration No. 708,684. Honda responded to the Office Action, and following the USPTO's admonitions, amended their applications to narrowly define the description of their goods and services to readily distinguish the Honda HM trademarks to avoid confusion, mistake or deception. Subsequently, the USPTO accepted Honda's response and approved their trademark registration on both marks. U.S. trademark status for the HM and stylized winged HM is registered and renewed. Both marks are owned by Honda Motor Co. LTD of Tokyo, Japan.
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 at China, USA, Pakistan, Canada, England, Japan, Belgium, Brazil, New Zealand, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Turkey.
Honda's Net Sales and Other Operating Revenue by Geographical Regions in 2007
American Honda Motor Co. 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; 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, Guangzhou Honda and Dongfeng Honda in China, and Honda Atlas in Pakistan.
Current Market Position
With high fuel prices and a weak US 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. 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. In November 2009 the Nihon Keizai Shinbun reported that Honda Motor exports have fallen 64.1%.
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. The brand would be developed by a 50-50 joint-venture established in 2007 with Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group.
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
Motorcycles
During the 1960s, when it was a small manufacturer, Honda broke out of the Japanese motorcycle market and began exporting to the US. Taking Honda’s story as an archetype of the smaller manufacturer entering a new market already occupied by highly dominant competitors, the story of their market entry, and their subsequent huge success in the US and around the world, has been the subject of some academic controversy. Competing explanations have been advanced to explain Honda’s strategy and the reasons for their success.
The first of these explanations was put forward when, in 1975, Boston Consulting Grou
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