How Did CASIO Get So Big?

[Music] I think this channel is slowly morphing into calculator man I say that because one week ago the topic of my video was Texas Instruments and this week it's Casio two companies widely known for their calculators so I think an explanation is in order well last week I think I may have entered into one of the smallest and lamest controversies ever let me read a comment from Dylan here he says four calculators it's just an American thing I assume in the UK where I'm from Texas Instruments just doesn't exist and Casio is the recommended calculator because everyone has it the section saying that Ti is automatically superior that's at least how I saw it kind of annoyed me because it's assuming everyone has the same experiences except for that love the video and love the channel good job that comments stuck out to me because it has good intentions the video in the channel I just said something that didn't sit well with him and he wasn't the only one now you can watch the entire video to see everything I said I actually recommend it because it complements this video but here's the section I think he was referring to sometimes in school you'd see someone with a Casio or some other brand but they always regretted getting it I mean what are you doing if you're in school and you have a Casio at least once every class the teacher would have to stop everything and try to figure out whatever the Casio equivalent of his instructions were nothing against Casio but you were holding up the class now I hope this was clear but I was only speaking from personal experience I'm sure many American viewers were able to relate I didn't even purposely single out Casio like that they were just one of the other brands I can think of I didn't mean to imply Texas Instruments was superior just much more common in my own experience I know I sound offensive and it's all kind of silly but Dillon and a bunch of other commenters opened my eyes to Casio turns out seemingly everywhere outside of North America they're the standard for calculators there were commenters coming forward from all over the globe just to tell me this they were from Germany France Australia Poland the Netherlands Thailand Hong Kong plenty from the UK so I can appreciate the irony in this last week I said to inform everyone that Texas Instruments was bigger than you knew and in return I ended up learning that Casio was bigger than I knew and if I was ignorant about Casio there must be others so let's fix that unlike Texas Instruments Casio was built on calculators it's a terrific story that dates back to post-world War two Japan this is a Japanese company by the way so bear with me with some of the pronunciations the man who started it was named today Oh Casio it began in 1946 not as a calculator business but as a maker of parts for microscopes the journey to become a calculator business is what I found impressive today Oh had a younger brother named Toshio making his name Toshio Casio he was a technician for telephones and Telegraph's but aspired to be an inventor he made the bold decision to quit his job working on the telephones and join his brothers business to try and create a new product that can propel them forward you have to respect that move giving up the security of your skilled position to try and build a business with your brother at the same time following your ambitions to become an inventor that move was somewhat successful early on the first thing he came up with was the you be what pipe which may look ridiculous at first but hear me out you have to smoke right I mean it's the 1940s but you also have to work so why not do both at the same time you can maintain your unhealthy habit and still have both hands-free yeah it still sounds kind of silly but that wasn't its main purpose see in Japan soon after World War 2 many things were scarce including cigarettes this device allowed you to smoke it right down to the very bottom and waste none of it yeah still kind of silly to me but it did have purpose and it did make them some money money that they would use toward their next idea are you familiar with the state of calculators back then it was a world of difference compared to today they were mechanical they had gears and he needed to crank a handle for it to work at best you'd find one that had a motor inside that would turn the gears for you but even those were very uncommon in Japan their vision was to somehow make something that would cut out all of those gears and be completely electric they spent the next seven years trying to make this happen eventually they were joined by their other two brothers named yokai oh and Kazuo meaning we now had four brothers all working together spending years trying to innovate this new kind of calculator all while maintaining the microscope part of the business since that was the part that was actually bringing in the money when it comes to technology seven years is a long time to work on something six years into their journey they realized that solenoids weren't practical to mass-produce and they should pursue using relays instead from a technical standpoint I have no idea what I just said and unless you have an engineering background you're probably right there with me well we can certainly understand what it means to make a major change in your project after six years of work after one more year of work they finally ended up completing their relay calculator this is it it was called the Casio 14 aid because it can solve problems up to 14 digits when I first saw it I thought that top part on the desk was the calculator but no it's the entire desk now it wasn't the first relay calculator but it was better than the others out there it was considerably smaller and believe it or not it was less affected by dust and therefore more durable there were some other new design features but I mean this was it this has been labeled the world's first compact all electric calculator it didn't take up an entire room and it didn't contain gears and at the time that was the only calculator in existence you can say that about after seven years of practically an entire family working on it they accomplished exactly what they set out to do their new innovation is what got them off the ground a company called ukita yoko made them their exclusive dealer and their business was now centered around making calculators it all happened in 1957 that's when they established the Casio computer company which is the company that we all know today and if you're wondering why they chose the name casio it's because it's similar to their name casio but more familiar sounding to the global population calculator and computer technology in general was rapidly improving during this time by 1965 transistors were catching on as the new way to make calculators there smaller and faster and nobody wanted the real a calculator anymore that year they introduced the zero zero one and what made it different from the existing competition is this one had a memory function the very next year they developed the similar slightly improved Casio 101 for international sale technology kept improving in the early 70s they made the Casio Mini by the early 80s they made the SL 800 which was the size of a credit card all of them were big hits now this was a rapidly growing market especially in the United States and everyone was trying to get in on it competing to make them smaller and cheaper but Casio was one of the few companies to emerge obviously they still sell them today there's still a major part of their business and evidently are the standard in many countries around the world that covers their involvement in calculators fairly well but they go much deeper than that they are all over the consumer electronics market in 1974 they introduced the Casio Tron and have made digital watches ever since in 1983 they introduced the g-shock the shock resistant toughest watch of all time on top of a ton of other models including some dress watches that are pretty snazzy and a Casio I can go on about these for a while button for now just know that they're big in that industry in addition to calculators and watches keyboards not computer keyboards but electronic musical keyboards in 1980 they introduced the Casio tone 201 targeted toward beginners or people who don't want to spend much money on a piano and they've made keyboards ever since electronic instruments became really big in the United States throughout the 1980s and by the end of that decade over half of all of them were sold by Casio these are probably the three products that they're most known for today but they make everything their sales are split into three segments last year 85 percent of all sales came from their consumer segments that includes the three products I've already mentioned watches calculators and musical instruments in addition to electronic dictionaries label printers digital cameras and other risk devices among other things they don't provide a breakdown any more detailed than this but they do disclose that half of all their sales came from watches so that would easily be their most successful product twelve point four percent of sales came from their system equipment segment which includes handheld terminals cash registers data projectors and office computers among other things and then the third segment is only 2.7 percent of their sales and it includes everything else the point here is if it's electronic you shouldn't be surprised to learn that it's made by Casio and then going by region they sell more in Japan than anywhere else which probably isn't surprising that's followed by the rest of Asia those two combined make up over half their sales Europe accounts for 15% in North America is 13% so everyone from Europe commenting about how widespread Casio is over there that's only 15 percent of their sales so let me ask everyone a question I imagine the answer would be different depending on where you're from and how old your but what do you most associate with Casio if I were to tell you that I just went out and bought a Casio what would you think I just bought it I would have pictured some kind of electronic keyboard but then watches are their most popular products so maybe you picture that but it sure seems like a lot of students from outside of the United States would say calculators I think that speaks to their success in diversifying here we have a company that got their start through their innovations to the calculator yet today I can't confidently say how you would know them I do want to point out that this obviously started as a family company and has been that way ever since when they were first established in 1957 they made their father president three years later Tadeo took over and stayed in charge until 1988 after that Kazuo one of the other brothers was put in charge and he stayed in that position until June of 2018 and his replacement and current president is his son Kazuhiro let me know in the comments which calculator companies should I talk about next week all right all right no more calculator videos for a while what I really want to know is Casio bigger than you thought it was because that will the case for me I was surprised to learn the popularity of their calculators internationally so thanks for letting me know about that also the story of the Casio brothers and how they spent seven years making that relay calculator is worth hearing staying dedicated for such a long period of time with some major setbacks along the way but they did it if they hadn't Casio wouldn't exist today it never would have existed so if you have any thoughts about that or anything else pertaining to casio or calculators or watches or electronic keyboards or all the other stuff they made leave them in the comments I'd like to hear what you have to say thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: Company Man

Views: 556,196

Keywords: Casio, Texas Instruments, Keyboards, Watches, Business Success

Id: lUe0W1fvQIg

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 24 2018