Kowa Company, Ltd. () is a Japanese specialized

trading company Trading companies are businesses working with different kinds of products which are sold for consumer, business, or government purposes. Trading companies buy a specialized range of products, maintain a stock or a shop, and deliver products to cus ...

and

manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ...

. Its headquarters are located in

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most p ...

, the capital of Japan's Aichi prefecture.

Overview

Kowa Company is the core of the umbrella Kowa Group. Other companies within the group include Kowa's sibling firm and the consolidated subsidiary . Its predecessor, Hattori Kensaburo Shoten, notably supported the industrialist Sakichi Toyoda's development of his automatic loom. The business is divided into trading and manufacturing divisions. The trading company division trades in fibers, machines, building materials, watercraft, mineral resources, chemical materials, and everyday goods. Meanwhile, the manufacturing division produces medicine, medical equipment, optical instruments, and energy-saving products. Marketing of Kowa medical products under such brand names as Colgen Kowa and Cabagin Kowa via nationwide TV commercials increased the company's brand recognition. The company also manufactures and sells Prominar-brand camera lenses, spotting scopes, and video equipment that is used by NHK and various commercial TV and radio stations. Kowa is the largest shareholder in both and , with which it shares

cross ownership Cross ownership is a method of reinforcing business relationships by owning stock in the companies with which a given company does business. Heavy cross ownership is referred to as circular ownership. The Japanese economy is alleged to be heavily ...

History

Predecessor company

* 1894: Fiber wholesaler Hattori Kensaburo Shoten () is established in Nagoya * 1912: Reorganized and established as a corporation, Hattori Shoten Co., Ltd. () * 1919: Added a spinning operation * 1920: Founder Hattori Kensaburo kills himself at age 51 after facing bankruptcy

Current corporation

* 1939: Trading division separated and established as Kaneka Hattori Shoten Company, Ltd. * 1943: Name changed to Kofu Sangyo Company, Ltd. * 1945: Expanded beyond textiles * 1960: Name changed to Kowa Company, Ltd.

Promotion

Kowa's mascot is a frog often referred to as Kero-chan. In 2020, Kowa acquired the

naming rights Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...

for a Nagoya baseball stadium, now known as the Vantelin Dome Nagoya, after one of its pharmaceutical products.{{Cite web, last=湯野, first=康隆, date=2020-12-10, title=興和がナゴヤドームのネーミングライツ取得、「バンテリンドームナゴヤ」に, url=https://travel.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1294373.html, url-status=live, access-date=2021-10-18, website=トラベル Watch, language=ja

References

Trading companies of Japan Pharmaceutical companies of Japan Medical technology companies of Japan Manufacturing companies based in Nagoya Electronics companies of Japan Telescope manufacturers Optics manufacturing companies Photography companies of Japan Japanese companies established in 1939