Facit

Under the popular leadership of Gunnar Ericsson, Facit focused increasingly on its mechanical calculators, branding, marketing and global expansion.

However, electronic calculators were rapidly improving in performance and gained larger market shares over time.

Facit sought to handle this disruptive threat by collaborating with the Japanese firm Hayakawa (Sharp).

As Hayakawa started to build its own global sales organization, the relationship between the two companies became increasingly strained.

The general view on this failure is that Facit met its demise as a result of refusing to acknowledge the superiority of modern calculators, as well as an unwillingness to adapt and change accordingly, to meet the new demands from the market.

Other reasons for this have been mentioned as well: for instance the inability to consolidate the R&D functions of acquired companies as well as limited R&D resources due to the relatively small size of Facit compared to its American counterparts.

Over four years, the Facit DTC 6500 home computer became popular in Sweden, though it was actually an OEM version of the ABC 800 manufactured by Luxor AB.