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Hitachi Ltd.

Hitachi Ltd. is a maternal company, which includes all units and firms of the financial industrial Hitachi group. The headquarter of the company is located in Tokyo, the capital of Japan.

Hitachi Ltd. started its activity at the beginning of the XX^th century from the production of a small lot of the first electric motor (5 horsepower) in Japan. Nowadays it is one of the world-leading producers of the equipment in the sphere of information processing technology. Hitachi Ltd. occupies the 22^nd place among the biggest companies in the world. The total annual sales of the company are nearly 67.8 milliard dollars, according to the data of the financial year 2002. It spends 5 per cent of its total annual sales on the research work. Hitachi Ltd. has 32 laboratories with 16,900 employees. The staff of the company consists of more than 300,000 office workers. Hitachi Ltd. controls 1,047 offshoots, 312 of which are situated abroad.

The name “Hitachi” literally means “dawn” and reflects the main philosophy of the company, i.e. to render help to people and society through technologies. This philosophy helped Hitachi to become one of the largest world corporations. Namikhei Odaira, the founder of Hitachi Ltd., had worked out Hitachi mark before the foundation of the company in 1910. He was sure that the merchandise mark would be the reflection of the quality of goods. He was also certain that with the help of this mark the company could win consumers’ confidence.

For his merchandise mark Namikhei Odaira used two Chinese hieroglyphs, i.e. “Hi” and “Tachi”. “Hi” means “the Sun”, “Tachi” means “the dawn”. He laid one hieroglyph over another and put them in a circle. Four protuberances made on the outside o f the circle symbolize four parts of the world and the beams of the rising Sun. This mark expresses the Odaira’s perception of a man standing before the rising Sun and planning the best future for everyone.

(1623 p.s.)

Комментарий:

a unit – подразделение; the headquarter – штаб-квартира (руководящий орган); a lot – партия товара; information processing technology – информационная технология; the total annual sales – совокупный годовой объём продаж; an employee – служащий; the staff – штат; an office worker – сотрудник; an offshoot – дочерняя компания, филиал; literally – дословно; i.e. = that is – то есть; to render help – оказывать помощь; the merchandise mark – торговый знак; goods – товар; to win consumers’ confidence – завоевать доверие потребителя; a hieroglyph – иероглиф; to lay smth over smth – накладывать одно поверх другого; a protuberance – выступ, выпуклость; outside – внешняя часть; the perception – восприятие.

Вопросы:

4. What is Hitachi Ltd.?

5. What place does it occupy among the biggest companies in the world?

6. What is the structure of Hitachi Ltd.?

7. What are the total annual sales of the company nowadays?

8. Who was the founder of Hitachi Ltd.?

9. What is the origin of the name of the company?

10. How did Hitachi Ltd. begin its activity?