Daikin 🇯🇵

Akira Yamada founded Osaka Kinzoku Kogyosho on October 25, 1924 to manufacture radiator tubes for aircraft. In 1933 the company began researching fluorinated refrigerants, in 1935 it produced Japan’s first fluorocarbon gas and in 1936‑1938 delivered the “Mifujirator”, the first Japanese refrigeration unit with that refrigerant, used to climate‑control trains. In 1951 it manufactured Japan’s first compact (packaged) air conditioner: compressor, condenser and fans were automatically controlled and the unit started by pressing a button, something revolutionary when climate control required specialists. This was followed by the rotary compressor (1957), the commercial heat pump (1958) and, in the early sixties, the country’s first mass production of compact units. In 1963 the company changed its name to Daikin Kogyo: “Dai” for Osaka and “kin” for kinzoku, metal.

The overseas expansion began in Malta in 1967, and in 1972 Daikin Europe N.V. was established in Ostend (Belgium), whose 5,000 m² plant started up in January 1973 assembling compact units and chillers. 1982 was the big year: the company adopted its current name, Daikin Industries, and introduced the VRV in Japan, the world’s first variable refrigerant flow system, which reached Europe in 1988.

Daikin's domestic inverter was not the first: it launched its first inverter split in 1984, four years after the competition, but it bet on efficiency rather than mere comfort. Since the compressor consumes 90 % of the energy, in 1990 it assigned an engineer to develop a synchronous motor with internal magnets that motor manufacturers dismissed as impossible; in 1996 it produced it in series, the first in the world, and that efficiency advantage is the basis of its current leadership. In 1997 it opened the first R‑32 plant and in 2012 sold the first domestic split with that refrigerant. In between came the Ururu Sarara with humidification (1999), the Czech factory in Pilsen (2004), the Altherma air‑water heat pump (2006) and the acquisitions of McQuay (2006) and Goodman in the United States (2012, $3.7 billion).

In Spain Daikin has been operating since 1982, with headquarters in Madrid, technical assistance in Getafe and eight branches (Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Erandio, Barcelona, Palma, Málaga and a Western branch). In 2024 the company celebrated its centenary with more than 98,000 employees and announced the EMEA development centre in Ghent and the fourth generation of Altherma with propane.

Pending verification

The date of 1982 for the start of activity in Spain comes from an excerpt of daikin.es; the corporate name and the incorporation date of the Spanish subsidiary have not been found.

History machine-translated from Spanish. Can you improve it? Write to us.