History

SATO was founded in 1940 to develop, manufacture, and sell machinery for processing bamboo, rattan and palm. Throughout its history, the company has been obsessed with meeting demands for labor efficiency. In 1962, our founder Yo Sato invented a hand labeler. The company subsequently became a pioneer in price marking, and was able to open up new markets when the hand labeler became a smash hit around the world. In 1964, we began independently manufacturing hand labelers, moving beyond the machine manufacturer paradigm to build the foundations of our supply business.

With the emergence of point-of-sale (POS) systems in the 1970s, SATO developed new hand labeler models that were compatible with optical character recognition (OCR) and barcodes. In 1981, the Company emerged as the leading manufacturer of in-store marking solutions when it invented the world's first thermal transfer printer for JAN/UPC/EAN POS systems.
Since then, applications for barcodes have spread dramatically for the management of goods across a number of industries, including retail, manufacturing, logistics, food processing and medical care. Meanwhile, the use of 2D codes, which enable users to input information into a small space, has also been increasing and has come to stay as a means for consumers to obtain information using mobile phones.

In recent years, RFID, which communicates and reads information using radio waves, has been attracting attention and achieving rapid progress as an advanced authentication method. SATO leveraged the auto-identification expertise it has developed over many years in barcodes and 2D codes to develop and market the first-ever RFID printer in Japan in 2003. SATO is currently working to introduce RFID in cooperation with leading Japanese and overseas companies, contributing to the development of auto-identification systems.

History

1940

Incorporated as a manufacturer of bamboo-processing machinery.

1958

Began production and sales of packaging machinery.

1960

Began development of hand labelers.

1962

Began production and sales of hand labelers.

1964

Began production of labels.

1981

Developed M-2311 thermal-transfer printer.

1984

Developed a real-time label printer-applicator.

1986

Established factory in Malaysia for the production of printers and hand labelers.

1987

Established group companies in Singapore and the U.S.

1989

Established group company in Germany.

1990

Registered for over-the-counter trading at Japan Securities Dealers Association.

1994

Listed on the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

1996

Acquired the UK company, Nor Systems (now SATO UK).

1997

Listed on the first section of Tokyo Stock Exchange.

2001

Company for overseas group company management, SATO INTERNATIONAL is established in Singapore.
Established group company in Thailand.

2002

Established group companies in China, Belgium and Poland.

2003

Began production of RFID printers.
Further strengthening and expansion of overseas label production system.
Began label production in Thailand.

2004

Began label production in Poland and Malaysia.

2005

Acquired the French company L'Etiquetage Rationnel (now SATO FRANCE).
Established a factory in Vietnam for production of printers and hand labelers.

2006

Acquired the barcode systems businesses of Checkpoint Systems, Inc. and established five new companies in the U.S., Spain, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.
Established four group companies in Japan.
SATO NEW ZEALAND acquired Walker Datavision's businesses.

2007

Established group company in Japan.
SATO AMERICA acquired TrakIT Systems' businesses.

2009

Integrated management functions of SATO INTERNATIONAL's overseas operations into Japanese headquarters.
Established shared service center, SATO GLOBAL BUSINESS SERVICES in Singapore.
Software development company, INOUT acquired as a group company.
Began label production in China.

2010

Headquarters moved to Meguro-ward, Tokyo.
SATO AMERICA acquires NODOS Corporation of Argentina (now SATO ARGENTINA).
Label production and sales company, SANKYO PRINTING acquired as a group company.

2011

Transition to the structure of a pure holding company through corporate spin-off. The Company changes its name to SATO HOLDINGS CORPORATION. Establishment of 6 group companies through incorporation-type company split.