| Traded as | TYO: 6996 OSE: 6996 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Karasuma Oike, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan |
| Products | Capacitors |
| Employees | 7,315 (March 31, 2011) |
| Website | http://www.nichicon.co.jp/english/ |
Nichicon Corporation (ニチコン株式会社 Nichikon Kabushiki-gaisha) is a manufacturer of capacitors of various types and applications and is one of the largest manufacturers of capacitors in the world, headquartered in Karasuma Oike, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan. In 1950, it separated from the Nii Works Co., established itself as Kansai-Nii Works and finished its first factory by 1956. In 1961, they adopted the Nichicon name and have been using it, or a variant thereof, ever since. They have produced capacitors designed for several hundred different applications and have had their products used by almost every major electronics manufacturer in the world, from cell phones and computers to speakers and stereos.
In the early 2000s, Nichicon is known to have produced and sold bad capacitors to major computer manufacturers, including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Apple. Nichicon's capacitors were prone to pop and leak fluid, causing computer failure. Dell now faces a civil lawsuit owing to its shipment of at least 11.8 million computers from May 2003 to July 2005 that used faulty Nichicon components and thus were prone to major failure.[1]
As of late, they have been spinning off many of their major factories into independent subsidiaries, establishing representative branches in foreign countries and realigning their corporate infrastructure.