History

Primo Company was founded on October 24, 1952 in Tokyo, Japan as Musashino Acoustic Laboratory. Their first products were stylus cartridges and crystal microphones. After a number of years, the business spread worldwide, and with the new name of Primo Company, Ltd. they quickly became internationally known. In addition to the original product line, they began making dynamic and electret condenser microphones for high-end application where the need for precision performance and high fidelity were required.

Today, along with company headquarters and main manufacturing facilities in Tokyo, there are four other manufacturing sites, one of which is in Singapore. The Chemica facility, in central Japan, is the most highly advanced with state of the art manufacturing. The product line there produces high performance ceramic receivers, sensors, and the newest technology in electret condenser microphone elements. After that successful expansion into Singapore, the next markets to move into were North America and Europe. In 1973 a United States office opened and yet another operation was born as Primo Microphones, Inc. and in 1981 Primo opened its first manufacturing site in the States in McKinney, Texas.

In the mid eighties, another opening was in Friedrichsdorf, Germany to meet the European needs. Although there is no manufacturing done in Germany, there are expanded efforts at the McKinney site to assist them. With 100 employees at Primo in Texas, they perform value add services second to none for their customer's needs. And in 1997 a Mexico Maquilla operation opened as Primo Microphones de Monterrey, S.A. de C.V. to further expand Primo's capabilities, capacities and customer partnerships in North America.

At the Japan facilities, Primo Company's research and development department maintains the highest level of equipment and testing laboratories. With equipment like Bruel and Kjear acoustic test equipment, an anechoic chamber, clean rooms independently controlled for environmental testing, such as temperature, humidity, and life cycling, where Primo can test almost any condition needed for element qualification. Along with a state of the art recording studio, it allows them the highest quality production to undergo scrutiny at premium levels. Whatever the customer needs, they can be satisfied by the R&D staff and engineers.

Another unique aspect about the Primo Company is that all of the automated assembly and test equipment is designed, developed and manufactured by our company's engineering and manufacturing teams. This allows Primo to be on the leading edge of technology and manufacturing practices. The competition has always been curious about our equipment source, and when they find out it is proprietary, they are amazed.

As an international company, Primo Company is still a privately held corporation. They are not traded on any boards or exchanges. World wide, there are about 900 employees with annual sales in excess of $250 million and they will manufacture a quarter of a billion elements annually. Primo is not associated with any "Keiretsu" (an affiliate of another business) therefore they have the freedom and flexibility to be very independent in doing business with a variety of businesses, companies and people around the world. To that end as an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) they find at times that some of their competitors are also some of their valued customers!

Today, the application of microphones is never ending. Primo finds them being used in more and more places. This translates into the need to manufacture more and the demand on the industry is enormous. Interestingly enough, the "ideas" for new applications do not come with all the answers and that is another area Primo prides itself. They are very willing to work with the developers and engineers in the early stages, many times at no cost, to assist in creating new opportunities. The focus is on long-term relationships and not short run profits. Primo feels that the seeds planted early will bear bountiful fruits in the future that benefit all.

It's hard to realize, but Primo has been involved in wireless communications and precision measuring devices now for more than thirty years. New products have been introduced and new developments continue to be worked on through the R&D and engineering units. Primo continues to be in the forefront in products for such applications as: voice recognition microphones, ultra-carteoid microphones, teleconferencing microphones, ultra-thin speaker/receiver units, noise cancellation systems, utilizing counter phase technology, and even mini-robotics.

At Primo, there is a feeling that there are no limits in enhancing their core business. Primo Company plays a key role in the telecommunications industry supplying literally millions of microphones and speakers. Today, with the popularity of being "mobile", elements used in the wireless and cellular industry are increasing in demand. Although this is a major portion of the business, Primo still maintains quite a presence in acoustic measuring, security, various headsets styles, medical applications, mobile paging, broadcasting and telephone handsets of all variety and configurations.

As is the nature of the OEM business, Primo is very sensitive to their customers' marketing and manufacturing needs. They stand by them through the cycles of ups and downs in the industry, and it has been their tradition to assist and follow what customers desire and needs, maintaining a low profile so the focus is on the customer and their success, and ultimately Primo's success. Early communications and cooperation in each business relationship develops strong customer and vendor relationships.