[Company analysis] Alps Alpine Co., Ltd. (アルプスアルパイン)

「Alps Alpine Co., Ltd. (アルプスアルパイン)」is a major electrical parts manufacturer including information equipment for automobiles. It was  established through business integration between 「Alps Electric Co., Ltd.(アルプス電気)」and「Alpine Electronics(アルパイン)」on January 1, 2019. And this company is one of the three major parts manufacturers in Japan with sales of over 1 trillion yen,「Kyocera Corporation(京セラ)」,「TDK Corporation」and「Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.(村田製作所)」. As a electronic component manufacturer, they have 4th largest sales amount in Japan. The number of consolidated employees is approximately 42,289.

 

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	Alps Electric Co., Ltd.
Company name (Japanese)	アルプスアルパイン
Date of establishment	Monday, November 1, 1948
Headquarters location	〒145-8501 東京都大田区雪谷大塚町1-7
Capital	38,730
Consolidated sales	851,332
Consolidated operating profit	49,641
Consolidated total assets	675,717
Consolidated capital	395,360
Capital adequacy ratio	58.5%
Consolidated number of employees	42,289

 

 

 

2. Summary and Features

 
「Alps Electric」, the predecessor of「Alps Alpine」was established in 1948 after the World War II under the name 「Kataoka Electric Co. Ltd.(片岡電気)」and manufactured rotary switches. After that, it became famous for radio parts such as variable capacitors. Then, they took up expanding the business terriotory, so now they are engaged in electronic parts business for home appliances, automobiles and smartphones. 

On the other hand, another  predecessor of「Alpine Electronics」was previously「Alps-Motorola Inc.」which was a joint venture company of「Alps Electric」and「Motorola」which was established in 1967. The company name was changed to「Alpine Electronics(アルパイン)」due to the fact that the joint stock relationship with「Motorola」was dissolved in 1978. This "Alpine" specializes in the fields of audio, video, and navigation used around the driver's seat of a car, and is mainly used in luxury cars with its high quality.

Recently, the technological cores of the automobile industry, such as computerization and autonomous driving, have made rapid progress, and the business areas of the two become very close together. So this two company, 「Alps Electric」and「Alpine Electronics」sensed the necessity of cooperation. The problem is, they are obviously separate companies, so there were many restrictions on the co-development, co-manufacturing, and co-sales in terms of general cooperation and sharing of intellectual property rights and know-how. In order to overcome this and increase competitiveness, on January 1, 2019,「Alps Electric」and「Alpine Electronics」agreed with business integration. From this story, current「Alps Alpine Co., Ltd.」was established. 

 

At present, this company handles approximately 40,000 types of electronic components and supplies them to approximately 2,000 companies worldwide. Of course, they also own several products with the world's top share. 「Alps Alpine」has strength in manufacturing switches, sockets, and various sensors that are mainly used in a wide range of fields such as automobiles, home appliances, mobile phones, information and communication devices, personal computers and game consoles. Among them, automobile switches, sensors and communication modules account for 60% of sales.

 

 

 

3. Major Business

 

■ Automotive Division
They handle customized products such as vehicle-related control panels and steering modules.

■ Home / Mobile Division
They manufacture switch panels, potentiometers, sensors, etc. for home, mobile and personal computer industries.

■ Industrial / Medical and Energy Division
They manufacture sensors, power inductors, switches, communication modules, etc. for the industrial, medical and energy industries.

 

 

 

4. Financial information

 

※Unit is JPY million

		2016	2017	2018
Consolidated sales		0	858,317	851,332
Consolidated operating profit		0	71,907	49,641
Consolidated total assets		0	669,874	675,717
Consolidated net assets		0	415,872	395,360
Breakdown of sales	Electronics business	0	514,031	468,605
	Automotive IT device business	0	267,638	303,593
	Logistics	0	64,666	66,888
	Others	0	11,981	12,244