Sharp Corporation is a multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and now is a member of Taiwan-based Foxconn Group. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employed 49,096 people worldwide as of March 2015. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder’s first inventions, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil, which was invented byTokuji Hayakawa in 1915.
As of 2013, Sharp Corporation is the tenth-largest, by market share, television manufacturer in the world. In Japan it has been a long-time leader. Sharp has at times also been the most popular mobile phone brand in the Japanese market, but is currently third biggest.