YKK, Yoshida Kogyo Ltd. Major maker of fastners, specifically the tabs located on most zippers. Company was established in Japan, c. January, 1934.

They have diversified into architectual and synthetic material sales in recent decades. The last audit conducted quoted a sales volume of 205.3 billion yen.

Look at your pants, chances are you have "YKK" somewhere on you.

Check your zippers... I bet they're YKK!

The company YKK was founded as Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha, but changed its named to YKK in 1994. It is a privately held group that consists of 80 companies in over 50 countries. They have over 200 facilities all around the world. They have over 35,000 employees. They manufacture seven million zippers every day in their zipper plant in Macon, Georgia alone. The factories control the whole process in making the thread, the brass and the polyester. Most of the zippers have the YKK name on them, but many also have other brand names such as Levi's.

YKK not only make the little "tabs" on the zippers, they also make the cloth and the zipper mechanism. YKK also manufactures the machines needed for making the zippers. They also are a major manufacturer of architectural aluminium products such as stormproof storefront windows and structures for other lightweight constructions. In fact, this division stands for two thirds of the company's sales.

Because it is a privately held company, they don't report their profits, but they did report a revenue of almost 2 billion dollars last fiscal year. It's a giant.


source: ykk.com, hoovers.com, howstuffworks.com

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