[5] As of March 31, 2022, Kobe Steel has 201 subsidiaries and 50 affiliated companies across Japan, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the US.

In 1918, it acquired the rights to manufacture diesel engines from Sulzer of Switzerland, helping to speed up the Japanese naval, marine, locomotive and automobile transport sectors.

[11] In the Great Hanshin Earthquake of January 1995, the Kobe head office building and company housing collapsed, and the No.

The Third Blast Furnace, which restarted only two and a half months after the earthquake, had become a 'symbol of recovery', but was suspended in October 2017 in order to strengthen competitiveness.

[13][16] The scandal deepened when the company said it found falsified data on its iron ore powder, which caused its shares to fall 18%.

[17][18] Following further news in October 2017 that car makers Toyota, Nissan, and General Motors, and train manufacturer Hitachi, were among 200 companies affected by the Kobe Steel's mislabelling, which had potential safety implications for their vehicles, the CEO of Kobe Steel conceded that his company now had "zero credibility".