Harman International history

The success of that three-pronged strategy was evidenced by one of Harman's first acquisitions, a car stereo company that he purchased in 1982 and dubbed Harman Motive.

In 1983, George Lucas selected JBL to develop the first THX licensed theater audio system.

Then, JBL premiered the first OEM branded car audio system in a Lincoln Town Car in 1984.

Of greater significance was the purchase in 1985 of the original Harman-Kardon operation from Shin Shirasuna.

Harman International went public in 1986 with a stock offering on the New York Stock Exchange.

Cash from that sale was used to, among many other purchases, buy Soundcraft, a UK producer of professional mixing boards, in 1988 and later - Salt Lake City digital electronics producer DOD Electronics Corp.

Harman's sales topped $550 million in 1990 and net income was shy of $15 million.

That concern was reflected in a disappointing $19.8 million loss experienced by Harman International in 1991, during the recession.

Harman moved away from his family in Washington--interestingly, Harman's wife (a Democrat from California) was elected to Congress in 1992--and moved to California to get closer to his operations.

Those and other efforts contributed to a rise in sales to $1.17 billion in 1995 (fiscal year ending in June), about $41.16 million of which was netted as income.

In 1999, Harman Kardon presented the CDR 2, the world’s first CD audio recorder with 4x dubbing speed, allowing music fans to accumulate more sounds and songs quickly with no loss of audio quality.

In 2000, Harman Kardon teamed with Microsoft to develop a high-tech remote control for computers.

Three JBL engineers won Academy Awards in 2002.

By 2003, the company’s 50th anniversary, Harman Kardon was going stronger than ever.

Then in 2004, HARMAN was the first company to enable Bluetooth wireless connectivity in a car.

In May of 2007, as Sidney Harman approached his 88th birthday, Harman recruited Dinesh Paliwal as HARMAN International’s Chief Executive Officer.

And in 2008, the prestigious Electronic House magazine bestowed Product of the Year honours on Harman Kardon’s AVR 354 audio/video receiver.

In July 2011, Harman acquired MWM Acoustics, a privately held company that specialized in speaker and microphone technology for consumer electronics and enterprise telephony.

Harman expanded to include lighting in 2013 with the acquisition of Martin Professional.

In March 2015, Harman acquired the automotive division of Bang & Olufsen for 145 million euros ($156 million) for the unit as well as technology license fees.

The sale was completed on March 10, 2017.

HARMAN CAREER SITE HARMAN APPLICANT PRIVACY STATEMENT Effective: May 14th, 2019