Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Alps Electric

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Type
  
Public K.K.

Headquarters
  
Ōta, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Founded
  
1 November 1948

Industry
  
Electronics

Number of employees
  
36,199

Alps Electric wwwdrivecrashcomwpcontentuploads201406Alps

Traded as
  
TYO: 6770 Nikkei 225 Component

Key people
  
Toshihiro Kuriyama, (President) Masataka Kataoka, (Chairman)

Products
  
Electronic components Automotive infotainment systems Logistic services

Revenue
  
$ 5.806 billion (FY 2012) (¥ 546.423 billion) (FY 2012)

CEO
  
Toshihiro Kuriyama (Jun 2012–)

Alps Electric Co., Ltd. (Japanese: アルプス電気株式会社, Hepburn: Arupusu Denki Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese multinational corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, producing electronic devices, including switches, potentiometers, sensors, encoders and touchpads.

Contents

The company was established in 1948 as Kataoka Electric Co., Ltd. and changed its name to Alps Electric Co., Ltd. in December 1964. Since June 22, 2012, the President has been Toshihiro Kuriyama and Chairman is Masataka Kataoka. Alps is also well known for the Alpine brand of car audio.

The Alps Electric Group has R&D, production and sales bases located in Japan and around the globe—in the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia, Korea, and Greater China. Since its founding, Alps Electric has supplied around 40,000 types of electronic component to over 2,000 manufacturers of home appliances, mobile devices, automobiles and industrial equipment worldwide.

Alps Group comprises 84 subsidiary companies, 25 through Alps Electric, 32 through Alpine Electronics and 27 through Alps Logistics.

The company is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and a constituent of the Nikkei 225 stock index.

Supply chain optimization alps electric


Business divisions

Alps Automotive division focuses on provision of custom products and modules, including control panels and steering modules, for specific vehicle models, and components compatible with any vehicle.

Alps Home and Mobile divisions focuses on provision of switches, potentiometers, sensors, and other components through to multi-input devices like touch panels and GlidePoint™ to home, mobile and PC markets. Alps Electric focuses on human-machine and machine-machine interfaces for home appliances, mobile devices and PCs.

Alps Industry, Healthcare & Energy divisions focuses on provision of a wide variety of products, including sensors, power inductors, switches and communication modules, to industry, healthcare and energy markets.

Alps touchpad hardware is developed and manufactured by the Cirque Corporation, which they acquired in 2003; however, the parent company continues to write their own drivers. Their drivers are Windows certified. They are mostly found in Sony, Toshiba and Dell notebooks, as well as the OLPC XO-1. They also manufacture keyboards for Apple computers, including the original Macintosh and the first iMac.

References

Alps Electric Wikipedia