Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano, Japan,[4] the company has numerous subsidiaries worldwide and manufactures inkjet, dot matrix, thermal and laser printers for consumer, business and industrial use, scanners, laptop and desktop computers, video projectors, watches, point of sale systems, robots and industrial automation equipment, semiconductor devices, crystal oscillators, sensing systems and other associated electronic components.

The roots of Seiko Epson Corporation go back to a company called Daiwa Kogyo, Ltd. which was founded in May 1942[5] by Hisao Yamazaki, a local clock shop owner and former employee of K. Hattori, in Suwa, Nagano.

In 1961, Suwa Seikosha established a company called Shinshu Seiki Co. as a subsidiary to supply precision parts for Seiko watches.

[8] In September 1968, Shinshu Seiki launched the world's first mini-printer, the EP-101 ("EP" for Electronic Printer), which was soon incorporated into many calculators.

[15] In 1994, Epson started to outsource sales representatives to help sell their products in retail stores in the United States.

Because its sensor is smaller than that of the standard 35 mm film frame, lenses mounted on the R-D1 have a narrower field of view by a factor of 1.53.

Epson has released a firmware patch to bring the R-D1 up to the full functionality of its successor, being the first digital camera manufacturer to make such an upgrade available for free.

[citation needed] In September 2012, Epson introduced a printer called the Expression Premium XP-800 Small-in-One, with the ability to print wirelessly.

In the third quarter of 2012, Epson's global market share in the sale of printers, copiers and multifunction devices amounted to 15.20 percent.

It became a de facto industry standard for controlling print formatting during the era of dot matrix printers, whose popularity was initially started by the Epson MX-80.

Later that month, however, the group retracted its call for a nationwide boycott and issued a statement conceding that residual ink left in Epson cartridges was necessary for the printers to function properly.

[26] Epson designed ink to be left in the cartridges (having done so ever since the introduction of piezoelectric print heads) due to the way the capping mechanism worked.

[citation needed] Nonetheless, Epson America, Inc. settled a class action lawsuit brought before the Los Angeles Superior Court.

[27] According to IDG News Service, Epson filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in February 2006 against 24 companies that manufactured, imported, or distributed Epson-compatible ink cartridges for resale in the U.S.[citation needed] On March 30, 2007, ITC judge Paul Luckern issued an initial determination that the cartridges in question did infringe upon Epson's patents.

[citation needed] In 2015, it emerged that Epson printers reported cartridges to be empty when in fact up to 20% of their ink remains.