Stanley Electric


Stanley Electric Co., Ltd. is a Japanese company, producing electric light sources. Stanley has 36 consolidated subsidiaries, three associated companies, 23 factories in eight countries, offices in 17 countries and over 16,000 employees.
The main customers for its core business are Honda and Nissan. Other customers using Stanley's products include Toyota, Mazda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Ford and Chrysler. Stanley is listed in the TOPIX of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

History

The company was founded in 1920 by Takaharu Kitano, who named the company after the British-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley famous for exploring Africa. As the company states, Kitano was impressed by Stanley's vision, courage and pioneering spirit. At that time, only about 8,000 cars were present in Japan, all of them imported.
Stanley's products include standard headlights as well as LED headlights. Stanley developed the world's first LED high-mount stop lamp.
Stanley also produces all types of automotive lighting, backlighted LED displays, camera flashes, automotive interior displays, sensors, light fixtures and streetlights, as used in Shanghai and Tokyo.
From 2013 onward, Stanley will concentrate more on the development of LED headlights and plans to raise the LED share from 1% to 20% by 2017.

Research & Development

Stanley does R&D at 5 research centers in Japan, where new light sources are explored, present light sources are optimized and new products are developed. One of those centers is located in the city of Tsukuba. Besides that, picoprojectors with MEMS and biotechnology are explored. Research results are regularly published in scientific journals.

Raybrig & Motorsports

Stanley sells its products under the brand name Raybrig directly to customers and also sponsors Team Kunimitsu in the Super GT.

Social involvement

Founder Kitano also established the Kitano foundation for lifelong education, which awards scholarships to people who can not afford education. The foundation is active in China, Vietnam, the Philippines, India and other countries.

Event sponsorship

Stanley takes part in illumination events worldwide. At festivities marking 150 years of Japanese-German friendship, the Brandenburg gate in Berlin was illuminated with LED floodlights. The Kabuki-za in the Ginza is illuminated every evening by Stanley's LEDs. Both events were conducted in cooperation with lighting artist Makoto Ishii.