Honda’s History



Honda Motor Company, Limited (本田技研工業株式会社, Honda Giken Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha?, Honda Technology Research Institute Company, Limited) listen (help·info) (TYO: 7267 NYSE:HMC) is a multinational corporation,
engine manufacturer and engineering corporation headquartered inJapan.

The company manufactures automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, scooters, robots, jets and jet engines, ATV, water craft, electrical generators, marine engines, lawn and garden equipment, and aeronautical and other mobile technologies. Honda's line of luxury cars are branded Acura in North America, Hondura in the Honduras and Hongda in China. More recently they have ventured into mountain bikes.

Honda is the 6th largest automobile manufacturer in the world as well as the largest engine-maker in the world, producing more than 14 million internal combustion engines each year. As of August 2008, Honda surpassed Chrysler as the 4th largest automobile manufacturer in the United States. Currently, Honda is the second largest manufacturer inJapan behindToyota and ahead of Nissan.

Honda is headquartered in 1-1, Minami-Aoyama Nichome, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Their shares trade on the Tokyo
Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, as well as exchanges in Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kyoto, Fukuoka, London, Paris and Switzerland. American Honda Motor Co. is based in Torrance, California. Honda Canada Inc. is headquartered in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, and is building new corporate headquarters in Markham, Ontario, scheduled to relocate in 2008. Hero Honda, a joint venture between India's Hero Group and Honda, is the largest manufacturer of two wheelers in the world. Honda of Canada Manufacturing is based in Alliston, Ontario. Honda has also created joint ventures around the world, such as Honda Siel Cars India Ltd, Hero Honda
Motorcycles India Ltd, Guangzhou Honda and Dongfeng Honda Automobile Company in China and Honda Atlas Cars Pakistan.

With high fuel prices and a weak US economy in June 2008, Honda has reported a 1% sales increase while its rivals including the Detroit Big Three and Toyota have reported double-digit losses. Analysts have attributed this to two main factors. First, Honda's product lineup consists of mostly small to mid-size, highly fuel-efficient vehicles. Secondly, over the last ten years, Honda has designed its factories to be flexible, in that they can be easily retooled to produce any Honda model that may be in-demand at the moment. Honda's sales were up almost 20 percent from the same month last year. The Civic and the Accord were in the top five list of sales.

Honda and Toyota, two of the strongest vehicle companies in the world were still not immune to the Global financial crisis of 2008, as these companies reduced their profitability forecasts. The economic crisis has been spreading to other important players in the vehicle related industries as well.