Industry Electronics Founded 1969 | Website Official website Number of employees 510 | |
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Type Public kabushiki gaisha Founder Reid Anderson (Verbatim, 1969) Key people Masahiro Taguchi (CEO and President) Brands Verbatim
Freecom
Mitsubishi (formerly) Headquarters Charlotte, North Carolina, United States Parent organizations Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation Profiles | ||
Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd. (三菱化学メディア株式会社, abbreviated as MKM) is a Japanese company that markets storage media and flash memory products mostly under the Verbatim brand name. It is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation, based in Tokyo, and was founded on February 23, 1994.
Contents
Originally an American company and well known for its floppy disks in the 1970s, Verbatim has been part of Japanese Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation since 1990, with the current company founded in 1994 reusing the brand name. Verbatim is today one of the best-known brand names for recordable optical media. It was named the leading brand globally in the market in 2005, and are known for their patented AZO dye, which is regarded as being high in quality.
History
The original Verbatim first started in Mountain View, California in 1969, under the name Information Terminals Corporation, founded by Reid Anderson. It grew and became a leading manufacturer of floppy disks by the end of the 1970s, and was soon renamed Verbatim. In 1982 it formed a floppy disk joint venture with Japanese company Mitsubishi Kasei Corporation (forerunner of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation), with the joint venture called Kasei Verbatim.
Verbatim mostly struggled in the decade and was purchased by Eastman Kodak in 1985, while its floppy partnership with Mitsubishi Kasei Corporation was still intact. It was eventually purchased fully by Mitsubishi Kasei Corporation in March 1990, after eight years in a joint venture. Many new products were launched under the new Japanese ownership, and the brand saw immense growth in the decade. Mitsubishi Kagaku Media was founded in October 1994 as a subsidiary through the merger of Mitsubishi Kasei and Mitsubishi Petrochemical, resulting in Mitsubishi Chemical. The new company absorbed the former American company and created a new Japanese entity, whilst the old Verbatim brand lived on.
In addition, Mitubishi Kagaku Media sell products under the Freecom brand. Freecom was founded in Berlin, Germany in 1989 and had been based in the Netherlands when it was purchased by Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings in September 2009.
The company was selling products under the Mitsubishi brand in Japan from 1994 to 2010, when Verbatim fully replaced it.
Products
These products are partly produced in Verbatim/Mitsubishi's own plants in Singapore and Japan, and partly under license by Taiwanese and Indian manufacturers.
Their early floppies were manufactured at a factory in Limerick, Republic of Ireland starting 1979.
Verbatim also resells relabeled products from Japanese, Taiwanese, Mainland Chinese, Malaysian and Indian factories (Pearl White DVD series in Europe, some CD-R not labeled Super Azo), including but not limited to products by Taiyo Yuden, Ritek Corporation, CMC Magnetics, Prodisc, Moser Baer, Daxon/BenQ.