From humble beginnings in 1969 working out of a suburban home in Sydney’s west, Daikin Australia has grown to be a local success story with plans to be a billion dollar company by 2020.
Celebrating 50 years in Australia yesterday at the Sydney Town Hall, Daikin Australia managing director, Shaun Uehara, said the company has grown from being a $100,000 company with three staff in 1970 to becoming a $866 million manufacturer in 2018 with 1,426 staff.
Today Daikin employs 1,500 staff and is a local manufacturer with Australian Made certification.
Uehara said Daikin’s support for local industry, particularly in western Sydney where its headquarters Daikin Park was built in 2018, is part of its success.
“That’s our strategy, to invest locally and contribute to the Australian economy,” he said. “It also means being able to customise for the local market; its about being responsive to our customer’s needs.”
This was further enforced by the chair of Daikin Industries Noriyuki Inoue who pointed out that despite being a $36 billion company globally with more than 79,000 staff the company still has a local focus.
“Some 82% of staff are employed outside of Japan with more than 80 production sites around the globe,” Inoue said.
“Daikin’s global success is its ability to customise products to each local market.”
Another part of the Daikin success story is environmental responsibility which is why the manufacturer introduced R32 in 2012. Since then Daikin has sold 21 million units with R32.
More than 500 people attended the celebrations including a long list of dignitaries and representatives from all three tiers of government including a message from the Federal Member for Lindsay, Melissa McIntosh on behalf of the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.
McIntosh said Australian trade with Japan is valued at $5.8 billion as Japan is Australia’s second biggest trading partner.
The deputy secretary of Trade, Tourism, Investment and Precincts for the NSW Treasury, Kim Curtain, said the government is working with local businesses to transform western Sydney with the creation of a third city in Liverpool.
“Manufacturers contributed $24 billion to the local economy in 2017 and generated 30,000 jobs in western Sydney,” she said.
“It is also an area experiencing rapid growth with western Sydney set to grow by 1.5 million by 2026. To accommodate this growth we need to build 725,000 additional homes over the next 17 years.
“Another major contributor to growth will be the Western Sydney Airport which is on track to begin operations in 2026.”
Cr Charishma Kaliyanda of Liverpool City Council said Daikin Australia is one of 17,000 businesses in the local government area.
As part of the 50 year celebrations Daikin presented a $50,000 cheque to the NSW Cancer Council.
Entertainment followed the speeches with performances by Pianist, Simon Tedeschi, Soprano Greta Bradman and Tenor James Egglestone.