NEC got its start in 1898 as the Nippon Electric Limited Partnership. It was reorganized as a joint-stock company in 1899 a treaty between Japan and the United States went into effect and Nippon Electronic Company Limited became the 1st Japanese joint-venture with foreign capital. In 1983, the company rebranded as NEC Corporation and is a Japanese multinational IT and electronics company, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo.
Since the 1980s, NEC — which provides IT and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and to government agencies — has been the largest Personal Computer (PC) vendor in Japan with its PC-8000 series. By 1990, NEC was the world’s 4th largest PC manufacturer and from 1985 to 1992. Its semiconductors business unit was the world’s largest semiconductor company, the 2nd largest by 1995, one of the Top 3 in 2000, and one of the Top 10 in 2006. Since then, NEC sold its semiconductor business to Renesas Electronics and Elpida Memory. In 2017, the company was #463 on the 2017 Fortune 500 List.