The story
Founded by Furukawa Ichibei in 1884, in Yokohama.1
The company traces its origins to Furukawa Ichibei who founded Nikko Copper Works, a copper-smelting facility at Yokohama in 1884, which became part of Furukuwa Kogyo. A new company; Furukuwa Denki Kogyo, was formed in 1920, when it merged its copper business with its own Yokohama Wire Manufacturing Company, which it had acquired in 1908. So, the new company was able to combine its businesses of mining, refining, and making copper products, like wire and cable.
Furukawa was a Japanese businessman who founded one of the fifteen largest industrial conglomerates in Japan, called Furukawa zaibatsu, to which Furukawa Electric belongs to this day.
The company is listed on the Tokyo stock Exchange and is constituent of the Nikkei 225 stock index.
Furukawa Electric aids CERN's experiments on the search for the Higgs boson with its superconducting magnet wires. The company's products also include superconductivity cables.
As of July 2013 the company has 137 subsidiaries and affiliate companies across Japan, Europe, North and South America.
In 2025, Furukawa Electric will integrate its global fiber optic cable operations under a new brand: Lightera.
From Wikipedia’s article on Furukawa Electric, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4