Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd. is a Japanese materials and electronics company, headquartered in Kyobashi, Tokyo, that helped pioneer recordable CD technology along with Sony and Philips in 1988. Founded in 1950, Taiyo Yuden currently operates factories in Japan, Singapore, Korea, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Malaysia. It was well known for its recordable optical media, which were regarded by many to be the very best in the industry. In June 2015, Taiyo Yuden announced its intention to discontinue its recording media business by December of that year, citing market shrinkage, changing market conditions, difficulty while improving earnings and a hike in the cost of raw materials. The company employs almost twenty thousand people worldwide and reports annual sales of more than $2 billion. The current CEO and President is Shoichi Tosaka. The company is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 stock market index. Wikipedia