BATTERY COMPANY
NOVEMBER 11, 2021
Duracell Company Overview
One name you will recall when you are thinking about battery is Duracell. This name has been around for decades, producing alkaline batteries for our electronic devices. Let’s take a look at the Duracell company overview.
Duracell Inc. is an American manufacturer of alkaline batteries. Alkaline battery is a type of primary battery that produces energy from chemical reaction of zinc metal and manganese dioxide. The company was founded in 1924 by Samuel Ruben and Philip Mallory.
Berkshire Hathaway now owns Duracell Inc since November 2014. Their headquarters are currently located in Bethel, Connecticut, United States and Geneva, Switzerland.
The Duracell story started when scientist Samuel Ruben and businessman Philip Roger Malory met during 1920’s. They P.R. Mallory company relocated its headquarters to Indianapolis, Indiana in 1924 and started to produce mercury batteries for military equipment.
In 1956, P.R. Mallory acquired General Dry Batteries, Inc., the third largest US manufacturer of zinc-carbon batteries. The term “Duracell” was coined as a brand in 1964 from the words “durable cell”.
According to Duracell official website, their first alkaline batteries are marketed under the Mallory brand name. These new generation batteries were designed specifically for Kodak to supply energy for their instamatic camera. In 1965, Duracell batteries were directly supplied to Agfa, Kodak and Polaroid for their consumer devices such as walkie talkies and tape recorders. Duracell was part of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and became the first battery on the moon.
The iconic copper and black colors battery were introduced in 1971, symbolized the conductivity, strength and superiority of its formula. Duracell are the first batteries to advertise on TV with the slogan ” No other battery looks like it. No other battery lasts like it.”. The birth of Duracell Bunny was in 1973 when Dancer, Fitzgerald and Sample advertising agency created the legendary ‘Drumming Bunny’ TV advertisement.
Through a number of corporate mergers and acquisitions, Duracell went through various owners. P.R. Mallory was acquired by Dart Industries in 1978 then merged with Kraft Food Group in 1980. Then Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought the Duracell in 1988 and became public in 1989. The Gillette Company bought Duracell in 1996 for US$7 billion. Later on, Procter & Gamble acquired Duracell’s parent Gillette for US $57 billion in 2005.
In October 2014, Procter & Gamble announced it would spin off Duracell in 2015 and on November 14, 2014, Berkshire Hathaway declared to acquired Duracell from P&G in an all-stock deal. the transfer was completed on February 2016. They employs over 3.300 people around the world with regional headquarters in United States, Europe and Asia. Every second, 63 Duracell are sold globally on average. Duracell claims they have 45% share of US market for alkaline household batteries.
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