Office profile
Daikin Headquarters & offices · Osaka, Japan
Daikin · Osaka, Japan
Ahead of its 100th year, Daikin moved its head office into a new tower in Umeda — an office planned for three years by a 40-person team of its own employees, who cut their paper documents by 70% on the way.
The 2022 head office in Osaka Umeda Twin Towers South, the benefits in Japan, and every head-office move since a small partnership started in Osaka in 1924 — then the business. Every number from Daikin's own website, newsroom and recruiting pages, plus the designers' project pages.
- 21,000 m²head-office floor area (≈ 226,000 sq ft), opened Nov 2022
- 1,579people working in the head office
- 20.4 dayspaid leave taken on average (95%), FY2025
- 88%of men took childcare leave, FY2023
Sources: Daikin news release, Sep 6, 2022 · Nikkei New Office Award 2024 entry (New Office Promotion Association) · Daikin careers site, Work style · news release, Mar 24, 2025
Companies / Japan / Air conditioning / Daikin
THE HEAD OFFICE · OSAKA UMEDA TWIN TOWERS SOUTH · 2022
An office designed by its own employees, one department at a time
Daikin decided to move in December 2019, then kept to its plan to add floor space even as the pandemic made people question offices. The new head office has more reception and project rooms for meeting customers, open floors without walls between departments, quiet spaces for focused work and many rooms equipped for online meetings. A project team of about 40 employees — from second-year staff to people in their sixties, chosen one per department — ran more than ten working groups for three years: one travelled to a stone works in Sekigahara to choose the marble for the reception counter. Management asked that everyone keep a desk of their own as a place to feel secure, but each department chose its own layout: air-conditioning sales kept fixed desks for staff who are often out, while chemicals sales went free-address to push people out to meet customers.
- 21,000 m² (≈ 226,000 sq ft) over 6 floors
- 1,579 people
- Reception on the 34th floor
- Interiors: KOKUYO with Node Design Consultants
- Workplace planning & build: Takenaka Corporation
- Nikkei New Office Award 2024
Inside the 2022 head office (signage and shared spaces)
Daikin's head office takes up six floors and 21,000 m² of the tower, with interiors by KOKUYO and Node Design Consultants and signage by ahd osaka.
Osaka Umeda Twin Towers South
The tower at 1-13-1 Umeda was completed in February 2022, planned by Nihon Sekkei and designed and built by Takenaka Corporation.
Facts: Daikin news release (Sep 6, 2022) · Nikkei New Office Award 2024 entry, New Office Promotion Association · KOKUYO MANA-Biz interview with Daikin's project team, parts 1 and 2 (Apr 2024) · ahd osaka project page “DAIKIN: new office”.
The head office tower and the Tokyo office
| Building | Address |
|---|---|
| Head office (reception 34F) | Osaka Umeda Twin Towers South, 1-13-1 Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0001, Japan |
| Head office Esaka Building | 3-21-10 Tarumi-cho, Suita, Osaka 564-0062, Japan |
| Tokyo office (reception 38F) | Yaesu Central Tower, Tokyo Midtown Yaesu, 2-2-1 Yaesu, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0028, Japan |
| Technology and Innovation Center (2015) | 1-1 Nishi-Hitotsuya, Settsu, Osaka 566-8585, Japan (in the Yodogawa Plant) |
Source: Daikin domestic locations page · news release, Sep 6, 2022 · Chronology (2015) · See them on the map ↓
Source: Nikkei New Office Award 2024 entry (New Office Promotion Association) · ahd osaka project page · Nihon Sekkei project page “Osaka Umeda Twin Towers South” · Daikin news release, Sep 6, 2022
Benefits (Japan)
Taken on average in FY2025 (95% of entitlement), helped by a planned five-days-in-a-row leave and company-wide leave days.
Choose your own start and end times each day; a version with no core hours is also used, plus a results-based discretionary system.
Average in FY2025; one leave-on-time day a week, and holiday work is banned in principle.
A year per family for babysitters or relatives' travel, for dual-income and single parents with children up to 6th grade; up to ¥600,000 for early returners.
Parents back before the baby is 6 months old can work from home up to four days a week and use short-hours flextime.
The company adds 10% to what employees put into the shareholding association (up to 20% of base pay a month).
A 2% bonus on housing savings balances, up to ¥5 million.
Specialists help employees find a nursery place, at no cost to them.
Source: Daikin careers site, “HR systems and work style” and Diversity pages (2026). Plans apply to Daikin Industries, Ltd. in Japan.
Why people stay: what Daikin itself says
Information is shared quickly and everyone speaks until they agree; the leader then decides and the team moves as one.
Work goes to whoever wants it most, not only the expert; others — even seniors — act as supporters, so young people who raise their hand get experience fast.
In 2021 Daikin raised the maximum age of re-employed veteran employees from 65 to 70.
An in-house programme started in 2017 with Osaka University, where many young employees spend two years learning AI and IoT.
A self-organised team of about 80 employees that scouts start-ups and swaps ideas for new business.
Daikin won the grand prize for growth through new ways of working, and has been named a Nadeshiko Brand for women's careers 8 times.
Source: Daikin careers site, “Daikin in numbers” and Diversity pages · Chronology (2021)
Who works here
employees worldwide (Mar 31, 2026); 8,212 at the parent company
consolidated subsidiaries, 293 of them overseas
Japanese staff on overseas assignment (Apr 2025)
of sales made outside Japan, FY2025
Source: Daikin Corporate Data (Mar 31, 2026) · careers site, Work style (overseas assignees) · Financial Data, May 12, 2026 (overseas ratio)
Office history: from a small partnership in Osaka to a tower in Umeda
- 1924 Osaka Kinzoku Kogyosho, a limited partnership in Osaka
On October 25, 1924, Akira Yamada — who had worked at the Osaka Artillery Arsenal and in a private company — founded Osaka Kinzoku Kogyosho Limited Partnership in Osaka. Its first product was radiator tubes for aircraft.
Source: Daikin Corporate Data · Chronology · History of Daikin Innovation, 1924
No free-to-use photo found yet.Have one? We’d love to add it. - 1934 Osaka Kinzoku Kogyo Co., Ltd.
The partnership was incorporated as a company on February 11, 1934, the same year it began making the Mifujirator refrigerator.
Source: Daikin Corporate Data · Chronology
No free-to-use photo found yet.Have one? We’d love to add it. - 1937 Sakai Plant
A plant was set up in Sakai, south of Osaka. In 1963 the Kanaoka Factory there began full-scale production of commercial air conditioners.
Source: Chronology
No free-to-use photo found yet.Have one? We’d love to add it. - 1941 Yodogawa Plant in Settsu
A second plant opened in Mishima (now Settsu), Osaka. It is still a Daikin site today.
Source: Chronology · Daikin domestic locations page
No free-to-use photo found yet.Have one? We’d love to add it. - 1963 The name becomes Daikin
Osaka Kinzoku Kogyo was renamed Daikin Kogyo Co., Ltd., and then Daikin Industries, Ltd. in 1982.
Source: Chronology
No free-to-use photo found yet.Have one? We’d love to add it. - 1987 Head office moves to the Umeda Center Building
Daikin moved its headquarters to the Umeda Center Building in Osaka's Kita ward. The same year a Daikin VRV system, which lets each floor control its own air conditioning, was installed in the building.
Source: Chronology
Umeda Center Building, 2006 · J o / CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons - 2015 Technology and Innovation Center
Daikin completed its Technology and Innovation Center for research and development inside the Yodogawa Plant in Settsu.
Source: Chronology · Daikin domestic locations page
No free-to-use photo found yet.Have one? We’d love to add it. - 2022 Osaka Umeda Twin Towers South
On November 24, 2022, two years before its 100th anniversary, Daikin moved its head office out of the Umeda Center Building into Osaka Umeda Twin Towers South, a new tower completed that February at 1-13-1 Umeda. The move had been decided in December 2019.
Source: Daikin news release, Sep 6, 2022 · Chronology · Nikkei New Office Award 2024 entry · Nihon Sekkei project page
No free-to-use photo found yet.Have one? We’d love to add it.
Map: how the headquarters moved
Daikin has never left Osaka: from a partnership in the city in 1924 to plants in Sakai and Settsu, then two head offices in the Umeda district.
- 1 · 1924Osaka — Founded as Osaka Kinzoku Kogyosho (city-level location)
- 2 · 19411-1 Nishi-Hitotsuya, Settsu — Yodogawa Plant, home of the Technology and Innovation Center since 2015
- 3 · 1987Umeda Center Building, 2-4-12 Nakazakinishi, Kita-ku — Head office 1987–2022
- 4 · 2022Osaka Umeda Twin Towers South, 1-13-1 Umeda — Today's head office
Addresses: Daikin Chronology, domestic locations page and news release (Sep 6, 2022); Umeda Center Building address from ahd osaka's contact page
What Daikin does
Daikin began in 1924 making radiator tubes for aircraft. It went on to make Japan's first fluorocarbon refrigerant and its first packaged air conditioner, and today calls itself a global air-conditioning and chemicals maker selling in more than 170 countries.
Main businesses: Air Conditioning and Refrigeration, Chemicals, Oil Hydraulics, Defense Systems and Electronics.
Source: Daikin Financial Data (as of May 12, 2026) · Corporate Data. Daikin's “FY2025” is the year to March 31, 2026.
Growth: revenue vs. people
¥2.49T → ¥5.02T
88,698 → 104,095
Years are fiscal years ending March 31 (Daikin calls the year to March 2026 “FY2025”). Net sales and employees (consolidated): Daikin Financial Data, May 12, 2026; year to March 2021: Annual Securities Report (118th term). Multiples calculated by eciffo.
Chief executives
Joined Daikin in 1973; President and COO from 2011, President and CEO from 2014, and Chairman of the Board and CEO since June 2024.
Founder: Akira Yamada, a former Osaka Artillery Arsenal engineer, in 1924. Since June 2024 Naofumi Takenaka (joined 1986, formerly in charge of HR and general affairs) has been President and COO.
Source: Daikin Management page and executive biographies (as of June 26, 2026) · History of Daikin Innovation, 1924
Daikin: questions people ask
Where is Daikin's headquarters?
In Osaka Umeda Twin Towers South, 1-13-1 Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0001, Japan, with the main reception on the 34th floor. Daikin moved there on November 24, 2022.
Source: Daikin Corporate Data · news release, Sep 6, 2022
Where was Daikin's previous head office?
In the Umeda Center Building in Osaka's Kita ward, from 1987 until the move in November 2022.
Source: Daikin Chronology
Who designed Daikin's head office?
The office interiors were designed by KOKUYO and Node Design Consultants, with Takenaka Corporation planning and building the workplace and ahd osaka designing the signage. The tower itself was planned by Nihon Sekkei and designed and built by Takenaka Corporation.
Source: Nikkei New Office Award 2024 entry · ahd osaka · Nihon Sekkei project page
How big is Daikin's head office?
21,000 m² (≈ 226,000 sq ft) of office space over six floors, used by 1,579 people. The whole tower has about 260,000 m² over 38 floors above ground.
Source: Nikkei New Office Award 2024 entry · ahd osaka · Nihon Sekkei project page
Does Daikin have free-address desks?
It depends on the department. Management asked for a fixed desk for each person in principle, but every department chose its own style: air-conditioning sales kept fixed desks, while chemicals sales chose free-address seating.
Source: KOKUYO MANA-Biz interview with Daikin's project team, part 2 (Apr 2024)
Does Daikin allow remote work?
Yes, for work that can be done online without losing productivity, alongside flextime (including a version with no core time). Parents who return from childcare leave before their baby is six months old can work from home up to four days a week.
Source: Daikin careers site, Work style and Diversity pages
What benefits does Daikin offer in Japan?
Among them: a childcare cafeteria plan worth up to ¥200,000 a year (up to ¥600,000 for early returners), a free daycare concierge, a 10% company top-up on employee share purchases, a 2% bonus on housing savings and a defined-contribution retirement plan. Employees took 20.4 days of paid leave on average in FY2025.
Source: Daikin careers site, Work style page
How many people work at Daikin?
104,095 employees on a consolidated basis at March 31, 2026, of whom 8,212 work for the parent company, Daikin Industries, Ltd.
Source: Daikin Corporate Data
Where was Daikin founded?
In Osaka, on October 25, 1924, when Akira Yamada set up Osaka Kinzoku Kogyosho Limited Partnership to make radiator tubes for aircraft.
Source: Daikin Corporate Data · History of Daikin Innovation, 1924
Who is Daikin's CEO?
Masanori Togawa, Representative Director, Chairman of the Board and CEO. Naofumi Takenaka has been Representative Director, President and COO since June 2024.
Source: Daikin Management page (as of June 26, 2026)
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