[Company analysis] Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd. (太陽誘電)

「Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd. (太陽誘電)」is a Japanese electronic component manufacturer that focuses on passive electronic components and recording media. Currently, they are expanding their business not only in the field of electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets, but also in the fields of automobiles, industry, medical care, the environment and energy. Until 1988, it played a pioneering role in the development and commercialization of CD-Rs with「Sony Corporation(ソニー)」 and「Philips」. The number of consolidated employees is approximately 21,300.

 

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	Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd.
Company name (Japanese)	太陽誘電
Date of establishment	Thursday, March 23, 1950
Headquarters location	〒104-0031 東京都中央区京橋2-7-19 京橋イーストビル
Capital	33,575
Consolidated sales	274,349
Consolidated operating profit	35,237
Consolidated total assets	328,861
Consolidated capital	205,953
Capital adequacy ratio	62.6%
Consolidated number of employees	21,300

 

 

 

 

2. Summary and Features

 
「Taiyo Yuden(太陽誘電)」was founded by Sato Hikohachi(佐藤彦八) on March 23, 1950, and they have manufacturing ceramic capacitors as its main product from the time of their establishment. In the past, this company was evaluated as possessing the industry's highest level of technology in the CD-R field. In particular, 「Taiyo Yuden」was popular as a cheap and good quality recording medium with high mass production capacity while maintaining high quality. Although their competitors had relocated their manufacturing bases to Taiwan or other countries, this company kept their Japan domestic production strategy. 

 

However, they carried out integration of production due to the significant shrink in optical recording-related products market. this was caused by the increase in HDD capacity and the spread of cloud computing. The recording media business of「Taiyo Yuden」became suspended in December 2015. From this event, they are no longer handling final consumption products, but they still have other B2B electronic components inclduing capacitors, inductors and filters for smartphones.

As a B2B electronic component manufacturing company,「TAIYO YUDEN」has a vertically-integrated production system from material development to product commercialization. In addition to the world's first type of capacitors and inductors, this company handles multilayer ceramic capacitors forelectronic devices such as PCs, home appliances and automobiles, and it has 2nd largest market share in Japan after「Murata Manufacturing(村田製作所)」and 3rd largest market share in the world. 

In January 2019, they bought「ELNA CO., LTD.(エルナー)」of the same industry. Unlike「Taiyo Yuden」, ​​which has advantages in large-capacity ceramic capacitors for smartphones, computers, and data centers,「ELNER」handles aluminum electrolytic capacitors as its main product, and achieved very good reputation in reliability for automotive equipment and industrial electronic components.

This capacitors from「Elner」are mainly used in the popular 48-volt mild hybrid vehicle (HV) in the European market. Considering the fact that these automobile-related electronic parts are originally required to have a high level of stability, their market barriers to entry are relatively higher than other businesses. In other words, it is said that「Taiyo Yuden」decided to purchase this company to expand their electrical equipment business to  automobiles and HV market which has high potential.

 

 

3. Major Business

 

■ Information infrastructure business
They manufacture electronic parts for data centers and base station communication equipment that utilize IoT and 5G, and utilize big data and AI (artificial intelligence).

■ Automobile business 
They provide high voltage and high quality electrical components for automobiles.

■ Communication equipment business
They manufacture mobile communication devices such as smartphones and ultra-small monolithic ceramic capacitors for the notebook computer and tablet industries, which are becoming smaller, lighter and more sophisticated.

■ Home appliances business
They develop and produce products related to high functionality for flat-screen TVs, digital cameras, game consoles, etc.

 

 

 

4. Financial information

 

※Unit is JPY million

		2016	2017	2018
Consolidated sales		230,716	244,117	274,349
Consolidated operating profit		12,385	20,221	35,237
Consolidated total assets		271,149	289,135	328,861
Consolidated net assets		154,150	170,118	205,953
Breakdown of sales	Condenser related business	117,666	142,858	170,633
	Ferrite and application products business	41,273	40,977	40,595
	Composite device business	65,680	56,838	47,930
	Others	6,196	3,443	15,189