Ikegami Tsushinki Company Limited 1946

occupation:
Manufacturer,
Supplier
Nationality:
Japanese
born in:
Ōta City, Tokyo metropolis, Kanto, Japan

The company was founded in 1946 by Kosei Saito in Ōta City, Tokyo, initially called Ikegami Tsushinki Seisakusho. The company was established to manufacture transformers, choke coils and power supply components. The company was incorporated in 1948 and then changed its name to Ikegami Tsushinki Co., Ltd. in 1951. At this point, they began manufacturing and selling TV studio related equipment. During the 1950s, they produced the Monoscope Camera and the Flying Spot scanner.

In 1960, to establish the company as a fully-fledged TV camera manufacturer, they released their TK-31T transistorised TV camera. Also in this year, they organised TV satellite equipment in various Japanese towns that had previously struggled to receive satellite transmissions.

In 1962, the company supplied CBS in the US with the first version of a broadcast quality portable TV camera, and then in 1964 established their American subsidiary in New York. Over the following decades, they would establish further subsidiaries across the world including the West German Representative Office in Dusseldorf in 1970, the Beijing Representative Office in 1987 and the Singapore Representative Office in 1991.

The company continued to grow so that, in 1984, they were listed as first in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and won an Emmy award in 1994 for skin tone detail in their cameras.

In 2007, the company agreed to an alliance with Toshiba who currently own 20% of the business.