History 1990-

Casio Electronic Devices Co., Ltd., was established in 1990 as an electronic device sales company. The company assessed potential OEM demand for devices such as the LCDs used in Casio products. In line with demand, it then promoted further technological development, and with increasing orders, ultimately secured greater cost competitiveness through mass production. Today, over 80% of the liquid crystal display devices produced by Casio are sold, not in Casio products, but to other manufacturers for use in their applications.

When the company was established, its main products were TAB/BUMP and TN, as well as STN LCDs; however, in 1996 the TAB/BUMP sales division was transferred to Casio Micronics Co., Ltd., and today the company only handles STN and TFT liquid crystal display devices.

With increasing demand for LCDs for display applications in small information devices, Kochi Casio Co., Ltd., was established as an LCD production base in Nankoku City, Kochi in 1990. Aside from the fact that the company founder, Tadao Kashio, was born in Kochi prefecture, Kochi was selected as the production base for its many favorable conditions for electronic device production, including a skilled workforce, transportation network access, and clean water. After the facility was completed in July 1992, it began assembling display modules for LCD TVs and TAB type LSI.

When the KL-1000 was released in 1991, the personal word processor was starting to become a popular product in Japan. Once people learned about the convenience of word processors, they became interested in making beautifully printed labels for office supplies and equipment, which had always been written by hand. To meet this demand, Casio released a label-printing device, which could produce easy-to-read labels on a tape strip, just by typing in the desired text. The lettering variation could not only be white on black, shaded, or hatched, but could also be written in reverse characters from top to bottom or from left to right, offering more printing options than word processors at that time. This product created a new genre of "electronic stationery".

In 1992, the Japanese school teaching guidelines changed, and arithmetic textbooks for fifth and sixth graders now required the students to use a calculator to solve some problems, making the calculator a new classroom tool. The idea behind this was to have students develop a firm grasp of basic arithmetic in the lower grades, and then adopt calculators in the upper grades, which would allow the students to spend more time learning concepts and less time doing calculations on paper.

Since the AZ-8 and SL-300LH were introduced in schools as teaching devices, the decimal point display was made larger for the young pupils to read, and a protective hard case was added, among other special features.

In 2002, the teaching guidelines were revised again, and the use of calculators was expanded to allow their use starting from the fourth grade.

As the “face” of a product, liquid crystal displays can be the key to a product’s success. In the early 90s, Casio was producing TN and STN LCDs; however, demand was increasing for products using TFT LCDs, which enabled sharper and clearer images such as those needed for LCD TVs. As a result, Casio decided to start producing its own TFT LCDs, and completed a new factory next to the existing Kochi factory in 1993. Beginning the following year, the factory launched the industry’s first integrated production line for TFT LCD devices.

Since that time, Casio has expanded its production lineup of small and medium TFT LCDs, and gained a great deal of technical expertise in the latest production systems, including mounting module and high-level production technology. In January 2002, Casio began to operate a second TFT line at a new plant in Kochi built to meet the heavy demand. The TFT LCDs produced here are being used all over the world for digital cameras, cellular phones, PDAs, video devices and more.

China has been promoting reform and liberalization policies since 1979. In March 1995, Casio set up joint venture companies in two cities near Hong Kong, Zhongshan and Zhuhai, which were receiving a lot of financial and technical investment from capitalist countries.

In the mid 90s, many of Japanês manufacturers began to set up overseas manufacturing bases in places like Malaysia, Singapore, and China to avoid losing competitiveness due to the appreciating yen. In addition to being able to produce very price competitive products in China, the prospect of a domestic market of 1.2 billion people was also very attractive. Casio set up these two companies with the goal of reducing production costs and carrying out effective local sales activities.

With lightweight portability and a rotating lens, this camera featured a color LCD monitor to allow users to check their photos on the spot and erase any they did not like. Pictures could also be downloaded to a PC and saved, and the price was also lower than ever before. Powered by unique concept, the QV-10 recorded explosive sales in spite of its relatively modest 250,000-pixel picture quality.

Until then, digital cameras were high-priced professional products used in the business of journalism. However, with the release of the QV-10 as the first product of its kind for the average consumer, the digital camera became a household word, and other companies quickly followed suit with their own products. In the Japanese camera market today, deliveries of digital cameras have surpassed those of film-based cameras.

The CASSIOPEIA was jointly developed by Casio and Microsoft, and was the first handheld PC in the world. It used an operating system called WindowsCE, newly developed for mobile information devices with small memory capacity, and allowed a high level of data exchange with Windows PCs. With an open platform just like a PC, software makers were able to develop a wide array of applications for the device.

With the widespread adoption of Windows95, many written materials, from personal data to office documents, were now being handled by PCs in the workplace. As a result, mobile information terminals became needed to enable access to this data wherever it was needed. CASSIOPEIA was developed to expand the office information revolution brought about by the PC to the personal level.

The actual product was released in June of the same year under the nickname of SATELLITE NAVI, as the top model of the outdoor watch series, PROTREK. The watch was acclaimed for its advanced feature allowing the wearer to easily determine directions and distances in relation to his or her location or destination, which is especially useful for outdoor activities such as mountain climbing and fishing, where lightweight compact devices are needed.