Yamaha Corporation

Yamaha Corporation is a Japanese company that makes musical instruments and audio equipment. It is part of the Nikkei 225 stock index and is the largest musical instrument manufacturer in the world. Torakusu Yamaha founded the company in 1887 in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, starting with reed organs. It became a formal corporation on October 12, 1897. In 1900, Yamaha built Japan’s first domestically produced piano, followed by its first grand piano two years later. The company was renamed Yamaha Corporation in 1987, a century after its first reed organ, to honor its founder. Its logo—three interlocking tuning forks—still reflects its musical instrument roots.

After World War II, president Genichi Kawakami used leftover wartime machinery and the company’s metalworking skills to start making motorcycles. The first model, the YA-1 (nicknamed Akatombo, or "Red Dragonfly"), was a 125cc two-stroke street bike based on the German DKW RT 125. Only 125 were built in its debut year, 1954, and it was named after the founder. The YA-1’s success led to the creation of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. in 1955, which spun off from the parent company. Also in 1954, Yamaha founded its music school.

Yamaha now produces the world’s largest range of musical instruments, including pianos, silent pianos, drums, guitars, brass, woodwinds, violins, violas, cellos, and vibraphones. It is also a major maker of semiconductors, audio and visual gear, computer products, sporting goods, home appliances, specialty metals, and industrial robots. The company released the CS-80 synthesizer in 1977. In 1983, it launched the DX7, the first commercially successful digital synthesizer. Yamaha shipped the world’s first CD recorder in 1988 and bought Sequential Circuits that same year. It acquired a 51% stake in rival Korg in 1987, but Korg bought back those shares in 1993.

In the late 1990s, Yamaha introduced portable battery-powered keyboards in the PSS and PSR lines. The PSS-14 and PSS-15 upgraded the earlier PSS-7 with short demo songs, selectable phrases, and sound effects. Yamaha ended its archery product business in 2002, which had started in 1959; six archers using Yamaha equipment won gold medals across five Olympic Games. In January 2005, it bought German audio software company Steinberg from Pinnacle Systems.