Nokia
In the year 1865 Fredrik Idestam built a paper manufacturing mill in Southern Finland and followed it up by launching a second mill in the nearby town of Nokia in 1868. Three years later Idestam transformed his company to a share company and the Nokia company was formed.
Nokia kept growing through the 19th century and in the 1960s the company branched out into electronics. In the next two years it developed a host of electronic devices including radio telephones
Casio
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Casio was established as Kashio Seisakujo in April 1946 by Tadao Kashio, an engineer specializing in fabrication technology. Kashio’s first major product was the yubiwa pipe, a finger ring that would hold a cigarette, allowing the wearer to smoke the cigarette down to its nub while also leaving the wearer’s hands free Japan was impoverished immediately following World War II, so cigarettes were valuable, and the invention was a success.
Toyota
Toyota started in 1933 with the company being a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. Toyoda Automatic Loom Works was encouraged to develop automobile production by the Japanese government, which needed domestic vehicle production, due to the war with China. In 1934, the division produced its first Type A Engine, which was used in the first Model A1 passenger car in May 1935 and the G1 truck in August 1935.
Samsung
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In 1938, Lee Byung-chul (1910–1987) of a large landowning family in the Uiryeong county moved to nearby Daegu city and founded Samsung Sanghoe. Samsung started out as a small trading company with forty employees located in Su-dong (now Ingyo-dong). It dealt in dried-fish, locally-grown groceries and noodles. In the late 1960s, Samsung Group entered the electronics industry. It formed several electronics-related divisions, such as Samsung Electronics Devices, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung Corning and Samsung Semiconductor & Telecommunications, and made the facility in Suwon. Its first product was a black-and-white television set
Suzuki
In 1909, Michio Suzuki (1887–1982) founded the Suzuki Loom Works in the small seacoast village of Hamamatsu, Japan. Business boomed as Suzuki built weaving looms for Japan’s giant silk industry. In 1929, Michio Suzuki invented a new type of weaving machine, which was exported overseas. The company’s first 30 years focused on the development and production of these machines.
It made looms and sewing machines
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Despite the success of his looms, Suzuki believed that his company would benefit from diversification and he began to look at other products. Based on consumer demand, he decided that building a small car would be the most practical new venture. The project began in 1937, and within two years Suzuki had completed several compact prototype cars.