Fujitsu General 🇯🇵

The company we know in Spain as Fujitsu was founded in 1936 in Kawasaki as Yaou Shoten, a shop selling gramophones, records and musical instruments that in 1938 began manufacturing radio receivers. In 1946 it registered the brand “General”, in 1955 it was renamed Yaou Denki and in 1966 adopted the name General Ltd. Its first air‑conditioning unit was a window model from 1960; series production started in 1964, in 1969 it developed its own air‑distribution mechanism and in 1971 it began exporting equipment to Kuwait and launched the “min min”, a ceiling cassette that is usually dated as its entry into the climate‑control business.

The overseas subsidiaries arrived quickly: United States in 1976, Australia and Germany in 1977. In September 1984 General signed a capital and business alliance with Fujitsu and in October 1985 changed its name to Fujitsu General Ltd., the name it displayed on its splits for four decades. Among its documented innovations are the first equipment with 1/f fluctuation airflow (1989), the lambda‑shaped heat exchanger (1992), the world’s first self‑cleaning filter, basis of the nocria range (2003), and the “Dual Blaster” double‑air‑outlet (2013). On January 1, 2026, with its 90th anniversary, the company reverted to being called GENERAL Inc.

In Spain the brand is linked to Eurofred, the Barcelona-based distributor founded in 1966 by Jordi Santacana, which in 1984-1985 partnered with Fujitsu General to introduce its equipment. In the nineties Eurofred began selling air conditioning in the appliance channel, grew to lead the market and launched the memorable campaign “Fujitsu. El Silencio”, which made the Fujitsu wall unit the reference split in thousands of homes. Eurofred also distributes the sister brand General and its own label Daitsu, and at the end of the 2000s created a joint venture with Fujitsu General in the United Kingdom.

Outside Europe, its subsidiaries in the United States and Australia, opened in the seventies, turned the brand into one of the major names of the wall split, which today is marketed under the name Airstage.

Pending verification

No documentation has been found for the “series 24R” sold in Spain nor the exact year the Eurofred-Fujitsu General relationship began (sources say 1984 and 1985).

History machine-translated from Spanish. Can you improve it? Write to us.