Iris Ohyama, a company based in Japan, intrigued me lately, apart from traditional Panasonic, Hitachi and other small home appliances companies, while I was analyzing Japanese market.
It turned out to be an industry leader.
Morisuke Ohyama established the HYAMA blow industry in 1958, headquartered in Japan. In 2016, the global group sales reached 364 billion yen or so (about 4 billion US dollars) and the profit was about 122 billion yen. In Japan, Iris plastic storage, gardening and pet products are best of the kind in the market.
Iris went global earlier. Internationalization is a measure I applied to selection of “Invisible Champion” as posted before in one of my articles. Usually companies that go global earlier have the chance to be invisible champions.
Established a Korean company in 1988
Established a US company in 1992
Established Dalian Representative Office in 1996 and began to set up factories in China
Established Iris Ohyama Europe BV in the Netherlands in 1998
25 subsidiaries worldwide
Distribution of Iris businesses worldwide
A large number of factories remain in Japan as shown in the distribution map below. It is home to 11,028 employees worldwide (as of 2017 data)
In China, it has 10 branches as follows with 6,000 employees and enjoys annual sales of about 500 million US dollars.
Dalian Iris Oyama Industry & Trade Co., Ltd. (first established in 1996)
Dalian Iris Life Products Co., Ltd.
Dalian Iris Oyama Development Co., Ltd.
Dalian Iris Wood Products Co., Ltd.
Dalian Iris International Trade Co., Ltd.
Dalian Iris Pet Food Co., Ltd.
Iris Lifestyle Products (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. (2010)
Iris Lifestyle Products (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. (2016)
Shenzhen Branch of Dalian Iris International Trade Co., Ltd.
Shanghai Branch of Dalian Iris International Trade Co., Ltd.
The distribution centers in Korea are as follows:
The factories and distribution centers in the United States are as follows:
The distribution center in Europe is located in the Netherlands.
At present, Iris has a wide range of product lines, mainly LED, food, household appliances, household appliances, retail stores and other major forms.
It is noticeable in the home appliances industry that Japanese companies tend to make products on their own, while Chinese counterparts are inclined to partner with OEM factories.