Shintom
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Company type | Yokohama, Kanagawa , |
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Shintom Industries Co. Ltd. was a Japanese
Shintom was mostly well known for designing, selling, and supplying the
History
By 1986, Shintom began to market its own brand of VHS players/recorders lineup and other electronic devices to compete with other makes, along with industry's first 2-week, 6-event timer recording. A new North American headquarter opened in
In 1992, without any warning, Funai canceled the contract after decided to build its own chassis-mechanism, as well as moving all VCR assemblies to China by 1993, until they made their last VCR in 2016. This sudden cancellation request by Funai permanently damaged Shintom's total revenue and investment capital, and it didn't allow sufficient time for Shintom to invest in new products. To prevent a freefall and risk going bankrupt, Shintom tried contacting Funai for several years if they could joint-merger but was denied each time, stating Funai is a family-owned, private corporation. By 1995, Sony stopped ordering Shintom's mechanism that was used for non-editing VHS VCRs, VCPs, and TV/VCR combos. Therefore, the VHS chassis mechanism business was dissolved.
During the 1990s, Shintom became the OEM manufacturer for assembled VHS VCRs, mobile phones, and car audio, while also producing measuring instrument and medical equipment for hospitals. VHS VCRs still accounted at least 50% of production business. Some brands included were
Due to slow sales of Audiovox cellular phones and lack of resources and funds in developing new products, with existing products quickly becoming obsolete, by 2002, Shintom was seriously in big trouble. Shintom's stock was removed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange for the first time, after three years of negative net worth value. In September 2004, Shintom sued Audiovox for $2.5 million in damages for dividends that didn't pay during the Audiovox merger. Shintom never approved the merger that created the preferred shares in the first place. The Court ruled that the preferred stock may not confer dividend rights, and Audiovox won the case.
Shortly after that, in 2004, Shintom filed for