AVX Corporation – Among the leading developers and suppliers of best-in-class electronic components
AVX Corporation is a leading global manufacturer and supplier of electronic components. The company has its regional offices in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. They have research, manufacturing, and customer service facilities in 15 countries around the world. AVX Corporation serves a wide range of markets, including the IT, telecommunications infrastructure, cellular, industrial, automotive, consumer, military, and medical sectors. For the automotive sector, the company contributes to new technologies for safety, motor control, infotainment and chassis control. In the medical sector, the company contributes by offering advanced products that are critical for implantable devices that regulate and stimulate the heart, bring sound to the hearing impaired and sight to the visually impaired. The company has 9,900 employees worldwide and had sales of 1.54 billion in 2012. AVX Corporation is a 71 percent owned subsidiary of Kyocera Electronics Corporation and is headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina. Headquartered in South Carolina, it is the largest industrial employer in Horry County. The company has three business units that include automotive brakes, cell phones, photocopiers, hearing aids, and locomotives. The company began in 1972 with the manufacture of ceramic capacitors as a subsidiary of Aerovox Corporation.
Its product line consists of ceramic capacitors, low inductance/signal integrity, RF products, energy harvesting, tantalum capacitors, circuit protection, filters, connectors, piezoelectric devices, and timing products. The ceramic capacitor product line includes surface mount multilayer ceramic capacitors, switch mode power supply (SMPS) capacitors, LED multilayer ceramic capacitors, and high voltage capacitors. The low inductance signal integrity line consists of reverse geometry, interdigitated, ultra-low inductance, hybrid niobium oxide with core cap, low inductance matrix. Tantalum capacitors include surface mount tantalum capacitors, LED tantalum capacitors, niobium and oxide/oxycap. Today its common shares are priced at $13.39 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Digi-Key Corporation – Delivers only high performance electronic components
Digi-Key Corporation is a well-known distributor of electronic products in North America, known for its electronic components and all types of board-level components. The company was founded in 1972 by Ronald Stordahl, who derived the company name from the Digi-Keyer Kit, which was a digital electronic keyer kit that he developed for amateur radio enthusiasts. The company is still privately owned by the same man, although Mark Larson was named CEO in 1976 and later chairman in 1985. It was Mark Larson who expanded the company’s reach from the hobby market to the global market it serves. this day.
Today, it is the fourth largest electronic components distributor in North America and the fifth largest in the world. In fact, it has been ranked #1 as the most preferred distributor overall, which is quite an achievement in the electronic components market. This award is based on industry surveys and customer feedback on product quality, service, responsiveness, price, and various other factors. What’s more impressive is that Digi-Key has received this award for 16 consecutive years. A major factor for this would have to be the customer service that Digi-Key claims to provide. One stat to keep in mind is that about 99.95% of all orders from this company ship the same day. Digi-Key has continued to expand over the years, most notably in 1995 when it introduced its website with full online access to its inventory and product information. The company has 82 websites in eight different languages, essentially making it the one-stop shop for all information on any related electronic component, including prices, specifications, and capabilities. After the 2008 recession, the company continued to grow exponentially, rising from 16th to 5th place among more than 300 electronic component distributors.
This privately owned company only has one location in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, USA. However, their facility is a whopping 800,000 square feet with over 2,500 employees at that physical location. This single facility stocks more than 500,000 products from 470 different manufacturers, serving more than 170 countries around the world. Lately, it has increased its share of supplying large production quantities to OEMs and contract manufacturers. Annual sales exceed $1.5 billion, with more than 2.9 million orders processed annually for an estimated 502,851 customers a year.
