Casio watches are made by the Casio Computer Company, which was founded in Japan in 1946. The company’s first product was a finger ring that allowed the wearer to smoke a cigarette all the way to the end without using their fingers. This invention rose out of the cigarette shortage following World War II, as a way to get the most money out of the expensive cigarettes that were available. It wasn’t until they saw electric calculators at a trade show in 1949 that they got into the calculator market.
They were predominately known in the Japanese market, and later the export markets for their calculators, cameras, musical instruments and calculator-watches. They released the world’s first entirely electric compact calculator. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that they branched into these other markets on a large scale, and the calculator wristwatches became a big hit that got them into the watch market on a larger scale. Today, they are commonly known for the larger, durable Casio watches that have intricate features and come with a larger, multiple page manual.
Of course, the Casio name has become big in professional and amateur musical instruments, such as electronic keyboards, some of which have built in self-playing features with several hundred songs. They can imitate multiple instruments and sounds, and professional musicians use them and children love them. They are very affordable for the home models and the professional models are affordable against the competition.
Now, their major product lines include calculators, cash registers, and audio visual equipment including projectors, besides computers and label printers, and of course, Casio watches. They make digital and analog watches, in addition to clocks. They are getting into the mobile network solutions of cellular phones and handy terminals. There are over 12,000 thousand employees that work for Casio, as of 2009.
They have taken their products, including their sophisticated, yet affordable watches to the global market. Their watches are capable of multi-function, business tasks, in addition to being reliable and affordable timepieces. Casio watches have made a name for themselves in the world market, and they are one of the watch-making innovators, when it comes to newer technology.
Casio has a corporate creed that sums their characteristics up perfectly. It is “creativity and contribution”, which is meant to express the innovative contributions they make to society in order to improve the way it functions. With a single product, they have launched new markets throughout the history of the company, and been responsible for many other related industries, as well.
Casio watches are no exception. In fact, when you think about it, they were among the first in technology that offered a product that performed multiple tasking options, such as the calculator watch. You can’t help but think that their watches will continue to evolve as the smart phone phenomenon has.
The Casio Watch line includes models called Baby-G, Classic, Databank, Dress, G-Shock, Pathfinder, Sports, and Waveceptor, which is their Casio watch that receives daily radio signals from an atomic clock to keep it accurate. This kind of diversity, innovation, and their years of reliability and affordability have made them a major player in the worldwide watch market today.
