[Company analysis] Kubota Corporation (クボタ)

「Kubota Corporation (クボタ)」is a manufacturer of industrial machinery, building materials and industrial diesel engines, headquartered in Osaka Prefecture. As for the agricultural machinery, this company is definitely top class in Japan, with a top share of 40%. They handle a wide range of products such as engines, construction equipment, vending machines, and snow removal machines, as well as tractors and agricultural machinery, and their overseas sales ratio is 65.5%. The number of consolidated employees is approximately 40,202.

 

1. Company Profile

2. Summary and Features

3. Major Business

4. Financial Information

 

 

 

1. Company Profile

 

※Unit is JPY million, as of 2019

Company name	Kubota Corporation
Company name (Japanese)	クボタ
Date of establishment	1890
Headquarters location	〒556-8601 大阪市浪速区敷津東一丁目2番47号
Capital	84,100
Consolidated sales	1,850,316
Consolidated operating profit	189,314
Consolidated total assets	2,895,655
Consolidated capital	1,426,433
Capital adequacy ratio	49.3%
Consolidated number of employees	40,202

 

 

 

2. Summary and Features

 
「Kubota」is  theJapan's largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery. 「Ohde Casting Iron Works(大出鋳造所)」, which was founded by Kubota Kenshiro(久保田権四郎) in 1890 as a casting manufacturer, was the begining of this comapny. And 60 years later, they started the agricultural machinery business. After World War II, the first Kubota tiller and the first tractor in Japan were released in 1970 and 1970 respectively.

Since then, they succeed in building good brand image in tractors.The most important feature of Kubota's tractors is their durability with less failure. Even now, old-fashioned models from the 1980s and 1990s are still in active use in Japan. Besides, that Kubota old-fashioned model is also popular in developing countries, and it overwhelms other companies' products with similar age and horsepower.

「Kubota」also has the top market share in Japan for rice-planting machines. Especially in 2016, the industry's first GPS-equipped automatic rice-planting machine "EP8D-GS" was released. They also have the top share in Japan in the combine harvester, which carries out grain harvesting, threshing and sorting at the same time.

Kubota's strength is that it has the highest market share in Asia where has rice cultivation culture. On the other hand, compare with the world's largest agricultural machinery manufacturers such as「John Deere」, they are technically weak at huge-sized agricultural machinery sector. For example, a Kubota's tractor has a maximum horsepower of around 170, while a John Deere tractor has a maximum horsepower of 600.

From now on, the demands for huge-sized agricultural machine are expected to become reality in rice agriculture, so someday「Kubota」need to enhance their technology. In addition, the use of ICT in agriculture is actively progressing, drone technology is being introduced one after another, and it is expected that agriculture will inevitably be automated in the near future. So this may decide the future of「Kubota」.

 

 

 

3. Major Business

 

■ Machinery business

■ Water environment infrastructure business

 

 

 

4. Financial information

 

※Unit is JPY million

		2016	2017	2018
Consolidated sales		1,596,091	1,751,535	1,850,316
Consolidated operating profit		188,777	198,826	189,314
Consolidated total assets		2,670,582	1,385,435	2,895,655
Consolidated net assets		1,271,925	1,271,925	1,426,433
Breakdown of sales	Machinery business	1,272,144	1,436,578	1,527,629
	Water environment infrastructure business	294,530	286,095	292,281
	Others	29,417	28,862	30,406