Corporate Information

Corporate History

 

1. Founding and Early Innovation 3. Worldwide Brand Success
2. Creating the Brand 4. Innovation in the 21st Century

1. Founding and Early Innovation

Founding and Early Innovation 1968 Black and White TVs
Eizo Nanao Corporation was founded as Hakui Electric Corporation in the quiet city of Hakui, Japan. EIZO began as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of black and white televisions.
1973 Name Change
The company changed its name to Nanao Corporation.
1978 Table Top Gaming Monitors

EIZO entered the gaming market by beginning the manufacture and sale of tabletop video arcade machines. An EIZO table top was used with one of the 20th century's most recognizable arcade games: Space Invaders.

Table Top Game

1980 Hardware and Now Software

EIZO acquired Irem Corporation, a maker and purveyor of software for home and industrial use. Integrating its hardware and software expertise would become the core of EIZO's business model in the years to come and remains that way today.

irem logo

1981 New Factory, Future Headquarters

As the company continued to grow, a new factory was built on a parcel of land adjacent to several acres of rice fields in Hakusan, Japan that later became the company's international headquarters.

EIZO building at 1981

Click image to enlarge and compare with aerial view in 2007.

2. Creating the Brand

Creating the Brand 1984 Going Global
Capitalizing on a global PC revolution, EIZO decided to expand its business overseas by founding Hitec Associates Ltd. (later renamed Eizo Corporation) in Kanazawa, Japan as a sales subsidiary for the European market.
1985 New Brands

After 17 years as an OEM manufacturer, the company began a new chapter in its history by selling its display monitors under its own name – or two names as it turned out. For the North American market, the company founded Nanao USA Corporation in California (now operating as EIZO Inc.) and sold its monitors under the NANAO brand name.

NANAO logo


In Europe, the company took a different route and chose the brand name "EIZO," which is the Japanese word for "image."

EIZO logo


The first EIZO/NANAO monitors came in 12- and 14-inch sizes and offered a "compact design and light weight." Some even boasted a "720 dots x 400 lines super high resolution."

1985 CRT brochure

Click image to see brochure (PDF)

1990 New Facilities, New Headquarters

To accommodate continuing growth, EIZO built new global headquarters and a research and development facility in Hakusan, Japan, next to a plant it opened in 1981. The following year, EIZO added a second plant.

Global headquarters and R&D facility

Global headquarters and R&D facility

3. Worldwide Brand Success

Worldwide Brand Success 1991 NANAO in Japan
After seeing its products appear on the shelves of Tokyo electronics stores as "reverse imports," the company began the sale of CRT display monitors for personal computers in its home market of Japan under the NANAO brand name.
1992 Swedish Subsidiary Established
Swedish subsidiary Eizo Sweden AB founded (now operating as EIZO Nordic AB). EIZO Nordic AB participated in the pioneering TCO forums, helping to establish guidelines for monitors concerning electric and magnetic field emissions, energy efficiency, and electrical safety.
First Foray into LCD Monitors

EIZO produced its first LCD monitor for PCs, the FA-1020, years before LCDs became commonly available. This 10.4" model came in desktop and swing arm versions.

1993 LCD brochure

Click image to see brochure (PDF)

1993 ISO 9002 Certification
Acquired ISO 9002 Quality Management System Certification.
1996 Unified Brand Name, New Logo, New Monitor Design

EIZO logoThe company discontinued using the NANAO brand name in North America and Japan and adopted EIZO as its brand name worldwide. With this global brand name came a new EIZO logo and distinctive new CRT monitor cabinet design which became a hit with business and home users alike.

FlexScan T761

1997 ISO 9001 Certification
Acquired ISO 9001 Quality Management System Certification (PDF: 732KB).
LCD Monitor Production

Advances in LCD technology combined with a demand for more space-efficient monitors made it feasible to begin mass production of LCD monitors for PCs. EIZO brought one of the first LCD products to market with the 13.8-inch FlexScan L23.

FlexScan L23

1998 ISO 14001 Certification
Acquired ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Certification (PDF: 2,474 KB), a management system EIZO has updated three times since then.
1999 Company Name Change
Nanao Corporation and Eizo Corporation merged and assumed the company's present name of Eizo Nanao Corporation.

 

4. Innovation in the 21st Century

Innovation in the 21st Century 2001 World's Thinnest Desktop LCD Monitor
When LCD monitors first became widely available in the late 1990's, their bezel widths rivaled those of CRT monitors. EIZO changed all that with the release of the FlexScan L675, the world's first thin-bezel desktop LCD monitor. With a bezel width of what at the time was a revolutionary18.5 mm, the L675 was an instant hit in trading rooms and back offices.
2002 Medical Market

With the rapid digitization of images in the medical field, EIZO entered the medical imaging market with its RadiForce line of monitors.

RadiForce

5th Anniversary LCD Monitor

To commemorate five years of manufacturing LCD monitors, EIZO released "Placeo", a 17-inch model with an aluminum cabinet. Only 3,000 pieces of this limited edition monitor were manufactured.

Placeo

EIZO Eco Products

The company established "EIZO Eco Products" as an eco logo with the purpose of ensuring its products meet an internal set of criteria for environmental consciousness. EIZO has since updated EIZO Eco Products three times.

EIZO Eco Products

2003 LCD Monitors for Color Professionals

Although the migration to LCD technology in the corporate world was well underway, professionals in color-critical fields such as pre-press and photography were still clinging to their aging CRTs. EIZO made it safe for them to finally make the switch when it introduced its ColorEdge series – the world's first line of LCD monitors specifically targeted at graphics professionals.

ColorEdge CG21

2004 World's First Adobe RGB LCD Monitor

Building on the initial success of its ColorEdge monitors, EIZO introduced the ColorEdge CG220, the world's first LCD monitor capable of reproducing the Adobe RGB color space.

ColorEdge CG220

Back to the Beginning

EIZO returned to its roots as a TV manufacturer with the introduction of the FORIS line of LCD TVs in Japan.

FORIS TV

2005 Swiss Subsidiary Established
EIZO acquired the Eizo Business Unit of EXCOM AG, its sales distributor in Switzerland, and established the fully owned subsidiary Eizo Nanao AG.
ISO 13485 Certification
EIZO became the first stand-alone monitor manufacturer to receive ISO 13485 certification for the quality management system for its medical display devices. (PDF: 997 KB).
2007 New Acquisitions Expand Vertical Market Business

EIZO acquired graphics board developer and manufacturer, Tech Source, Inc. of Florida, USA. With this acquisition, EIZO entered the air traffic control, military and defense, and command and control markets.

Raptor4000-LR

Later this year, EIZO acquired the medical monitor business of Germany's Siemens A&D and established a new subsidiary, EIZO GmbH, in Karlsruhe, Germany. Through this acquisition, EIZO expanded its presence in the medical market, strengthened its R&D expertise, and now had production capability in Germany.
New R&D Facility

The company opened a new 2.5 billion yen, six floor research and development center within its global headquarters in Hakusan, Japan.

New R&D

2008 Further Vertical Market Expansion

EIZO entered into a definitive agreement with eg-electronic GmbH of Wolfratshausen, Germany to acquire the latter's business units for industrial monitors, air traffic control monitors, and monitor control boards. The acquisition was finalized in February 2009 and a new subsidiary, EIZO Technologies GmbH, in Wolfratshausen, Germany, officially began operations.

Raptor SQ2801

2009 FORIS Goes Global

Previously only available in Japan, EIZO expanded its FORIS line of TVs to include PC monitors for home entertainment and released FORIS monitors worldwide.

FORIS FX2431

2010 Factory for the Chinese Market
Anticipating rapid growth in China for medical services and medical devices, EIZO established a wholly-owned subsidiary in China, EIZO Display Technologies (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., to manufacture medical monitors for the Chinese market.
2011 German and UK Subsidiaries Established
EIZO established two wholly-owned subsidiaries, Europe GmbH (Germany) and EIZO Limited (United Kingdom), to expand its sales and marketing activities in Europe.
2013 Company name change
Changed company name from Eizo Nanao Corporation to EIZO Corporation.