Hoya is a global leader in the specialized glass used in eyeglass lenses, health care, and electronics products. The firm was founded in 1941 when brothers Shoichi and Shigeru Yamanaka set up a factory in the city of Hoya, Japan, with a plan to make specialized optical glass. Since the beginning, Hoya has kept an eye on the future, its mission being to embrace cutting-edge technologies that are essential to society. Today, the firm is a leader in the glass used in eyeglass and contact lenses, semiconductor and hard drive manufacturing and medical endoscopes (minimally invasive tools used to look inside the body). About 62% of the firm’s sales are in vision and health care products with the remainder in information technology.

Optical lenses, credit: Hoya

For Hoya, innovation begins with the design process. All designs are developed in-house, so also are the core technologies needed for optical design engineering, including software and imaging simulation technologies as well as the hardware equipment for testing. Hoya makes more than 100 different varieties of glass, working from a proprietary “recipe book” containing more than 50,000 different ways to make glass. Hoya’s method of melting glass at the extreme high temperatures of 1,300-1,500 degrees Celsius creates what Hoya calls a continuous melting process, resulting in extremely even and homogeneous glass. High-precision molds eliminate the need for grinding and polishing, thus allowing the firm to mass produce its lenses with measurement tolerances at the sub-micron level. Hoya employs about 37,000 people in 50 countries worldwide.

As of 12/31/21, Hoya was held in the Knowledge Leaders Strategy.