Siemens

Siemens AG is a large German company that works in many important areas. It helps factories run better, makes buildings smart, builds trains, and creates health technology. It is the biggest engineering company in Europe and leads the world in smart technology and automation.

The story of Siemens began in 1847 in Berlin. Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske started a company called Telegraphen Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske. Over time, Siemens grew by joining with other companies. Today, Siemens has offices in Munich and Berlin, and it employs many people around the world.

Siemens has four main parts to its business: Digital Industries, Smart Infrastructure, Mobility, and Financial Services. In the past, Siemens also owned other companies that are now separate, like Infineon Technologies, Osram, Siemens Healthineers, and Siemens Energy. Siemens is very important to the German economy and is one of the biggest companies in the world.

History

1847 to 1901

Siemens & Halske was started by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske on 1 October 1847. They made a device that used a needle to show letters instead of Morse code. The company opened its first workshop on 12 October.

In 1848, the company made the first long-distance telegraph line in Europe: 500 km from Berlin to Frankfurt am Main. In 1850, Carl Wilhelm Siemens began working for the company in London. The London agency became a branch office in 1858. In the 1850s, the company built telegraph lines in Russia. In 1855, a branch opened in St Petersburg, Russia. In 1867, Siemens finished the Indo-European telegraph line from London to Calcutta.

In 1867, Werner von Siemens described a dynamo without permanent magnets.

A similar system was also made by Ányos Jedlik and Charles Wheatstone, but Siemens was the first company to build such devices. In 1881, a Siemens AC Alternator driven by a watermill powered the world’s first electric street lights in Godalming, United Kingdom. The company grew and made electric trains and light bulbs. In 1885, Siemens sold a generator to George Westinghouse, helping him start testing AC networks.

In 1887, Siemens opened its first office in Japan. In 1890, the founder retired and left the company to his brother Carl and sons Arnold and Wilhelm. In 1892, Siemens built the Hobart electric tramway in Tasmania, Australia, which was the first full electric tram network in the Southern Hemisphere.

1901 to 1933

Siemens & Halske (S & H) became a company in 1897 and later joined parts of its work with Schuckert & Co., Nuremberg, in 1903 to become Siemens-Schuckert. In 1907, Siemens had 34,324 employees and was the seventh-largest company in the German empire by number of workers.

In 1919, S & H and two other companies together formed the Osram lightbulb company.

During the 1920s and 1930s, S & H began making radios, television sets, and electron microscopes.

In the 1920s, Siemens built the Ardnacrusha Hydro Power station on the River Shannon in the then Irish Free State.

1933 to 1945

Siemens used the forced labour of people who were taken away. The company had a plant in Auschwitz concentration camp.

Siemens also used the forced labour of women taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp; a Siemens factory was near the camp.

During the last years of World War II, many factories in Berlin and other big cities were destroyed by Allied air raids. To avoid more damage, manufacturing was moved to other places not affected by the air war. Records show Siemens had almost 400 different manufacturing places by early 1945.

In 1972, Siemens sued a German writer for a satirical book about the company. The trial showed that Siemens had a history during the Nazi time. The company provided parts for Nazi concentration camps and death camps. The factories had very bad conditions, and many people died there. The camps were run by the SS together with company leaders.

1945 to 2001

In the 1950s, from its new home in Bavaria, S&H began making computers, semiconductor devices, washing machines, and pacemakers.^{[citation needed]} In 1966, Siemens & Halske (S&H, started in 1847), Siemens-Schuckertwerke (SSW, started in 1903) and Siemens-Reiniger-Werke (SRW, started in 1932) joined to form Siemens AG. In 1969, Siemens joined with AEG to make nuclear power plants.

The company's first digital telephone exchange was made in 1980, and in 1988, Siemens and GEC bought the UK defence and technology company Plessey. Plessey's parts were split, and Siemens took over the avionics, radar and traffic control businesses—as Siemens Plessey.

In 1977, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) joined with Siemens, which wanted to improve its technology and enter the American market. Siemens bought 20% of AMD's stock, giving the company money to grow its products. The two companies also made Advanced Micro Computers (AMC) in Silicon Valley and Germany, helping AMD enter the microcomputer field, especially with AMD's Zilog Z8000 microprocessors. When the two companies disagreed on AMC, AMD bought Siemens's share in the American part in 1979. AMD closed AMC in late 1981 after focusing on making Intel x86 microprocessors.

In 1985, Siemens bought Allis-Chalmers's share in the partnership company Siemens-Allis which supplied electrical control equipment. It was added to Siemens's Energy and Automation division.

In 1987, Siemens brought back Kraftwerk Union, the part that looked after nuclear power business.

In 1987, Siemens bought Kongsberg Offshore from the Norwegian Government, selling it to FMC Technologies in 1993.

In 1989, Siemens bought the solar photovoltaic business, including 3 solar module factories, from ARCO Solar, owned by oil company ARCO.

In 1991, Siemens bought Nixdorf Computer and renamed it Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme, to make personal computers.

In October 1991, Siemens bought the Industrial Systems Division of Texas Instruments, based in Johnson City, Tennessee. This part became Siemens Industrial Automation, and later joined Siemens Energy and Automation, Inc.

In 1992, Siemens bought IBM's share of ROLM (Siemens had bought part of ROLM five years earlier), making SiemensROLM Communications; later dropping ROLM from the name in the 1990s.

In 1993–1994, Siemens C651 electric trains for Singapore's Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system were made in Austria.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997, Siemens agreed to sell the defence part of Siemens Plessey to British Aerospace (BAe) and a German aerospace company, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace. BAe and DASA bought the British and German parts of the business.

In October 1997, Siemens Financial Services (SFS) was started to handle financing and manage financial risks in Siemens.

In 1998, Siemens bought Westinghouse Power Generation for more than $1.5 billion from the CBS Corporation, moving Siemens from third to second in the world power generation market.

In 1999, Siemens's semiconductor business became a new company called Infineon Technologies. Its Electromechanical Components business became an independent company: Siemens Electromechanical Components GmbH & Co. KG, (which was sold to Tyco International Ltd later that year for about $1.1 billion.

That same year, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG became part of Fujitsu Siemens Computers, with its retail banking technology group becoming Wincor Nixdorf.

In 2000, Shared Medical Systems Corporation was bought by Siemens's Medical Engineering Group, later becoming part of Siemens Medical Solutions.

Also in 2000, Atecs-Mannesman was bought by Siemens. The sale finished in April 2001 with 50% of the shares bought, Mannesmann VDO AG joined Siemens Automotive to form Siemens VDO Automotive AG, Atecs Mannesmann Dematic Systems joined Siemens Production and Logistics to form Siemens Dematic AG, Mannesmann Demag Delaval joined the Power Generation part of Siemens AG. Other parts of the company were bought by Robert Bosch GmbH at the same time. Also, Moore Products Co. of Spring House, PA USA was bought by Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc.

2001 to 2005

In 2001, Chemtech Group of Brazil joined the Siemens Group; it provides industrial process optimisation, advice and other engineering services.

Also in 2001, Siemens made a joint venture Framatome with Areva SA of France by joining much of the companies' nuclear businesses.

In 2002, Siemens sold some of its business to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (KKR), with its metering business included in the sale.

In 2002, Siemens left the solar photovoltaic industry by selling its share in a joint-venture company, made in 2001 with Shell and E.ON, to Shell.

In 2003, Siemens bought the flow part of Danfoss and added it to the Automation and Drives division. Also in 2003 Siemens bought IndX software (real-time data organisation and showing). That same year Siemens opened its office in Kabul. Also in 2003 Siemens agreed to buy Alstom Industrial Turbines; a maker of small, medium and industrial gas turbines for €1.1 billion. On 11 February 2003, Siemens planned to shorten phones' time on shelves by making new Xelibri lines each year, with new devices coming out for spring-summer and autumn-winter. On 6 March 2003, the company opened an office in San Jose. On 7 March 2003, the company said it planned to get 10 per cent of the market in mainland China for handsets. On 18 March 2003, the company showed the latest in its series of Xelibri fashion phones.

In 2004, the wind energy company Bonus Energy in Brande, Denmark was bought, making the Siemens Wind Power division. Also in 2004, Siemens invested in Dasan Networks (South Korea, broadband network equipment) buying about 40% of the shares, Nokia Siemens later sold the shares in 2008. That year Siemens bought Photo-Scan (UK, CCTV systems), US Filter Corporation (water and waste water treatment technologies/solutions, bought from Veolia), Huntsville Electronics Corporation (car electronics, bought from Chrysler), and Chantry Networks (WLAN equipment).

In 2005, Siemens sold the Siemens mobile making business to BenQ, making the BenQ-Siemens division. Also in 2005 Siemens bought Flender Holding GmbH (Bocholt, Germany, gears/industrial drives), Bewator AB (building security systems), Wheelabrator Air Pollution Control, Inc. (industrial and power station dust control systems), AN Windenergie GmbH. (Wind energy), Power Technologies Inc. (Schenectady, USA, energy industry software and training), CTI Molecular Imaging (Positron emission tomography and molecular imaging systems), Myrio (IPTV systems), Shaw Power Technologies International Ltd (UK/USA, electrical engineering advice, bought from Shaw Group), and Transmitton (Ashby de la Zouch UK, rail and other industry control and asset management).

2005 and continuing: worldwide bribery scandal

Starting in 2005, Siemens was involved in a big scandal about paying bribes. One case was the Siemens Greek bribery scandal, where the company was said to have made deals with Greek government leaders during the 2004 Summer Olympics. This case, and others, led to legal checks in Germany, started by leaders in Italy, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, and later by American checks in 2006 because the company was on US stock markets.

Checks found that Siemens had a habit of paying bribes to get contracts, spending about $1.3 billion on bribes in many countries, and keeping different accounting records to hide this. In December 2008, Siemens settled, paying about $1.6 billion to the US and Germany in what was, at the time, the biggest bribery fine ever. The company also had to spend $1 billion on new internal rules for following laws. Siemens said it broke rules of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, while its Bangladesh and Venezuela parts said they paid bribes.

Even though some thought the fine might be as much as $5 billion, the final amount was smaller because Siemens worked with the checkers, there was a change coming in the US government, and Siemens was a US military contractor. The payments included $450 million in fines and giving up $350 million in profits in the US. Siemens also made new compliance rules, choosing Peter Y. Solmssen, a US lawyer, to watch compliance and accepting watching from Theo Waigel, a past German finance minister. Siemens made new anti-corruption rules, including a full anti-corruption book, online tools for checking and following rules, a secret way for employees to talk, and a group to make rules about behaviour. This needed about 500 full-time workers for following rules around the world.

Siemens had a culture of paying bribes going back to 1914 when both Siemens and Vickers were in a case about bribes paid to Japanese naval leaders. The company paid bribes to grow its business in developing countries after World War II. Until 1999, bribes were a tax-deductible business cost in Germany, with no punishment for bribing foreign leaders. But with the 1999 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, Siemens began using off-shore accounts to hide its bribes.

During the checks, Reinhard Siekaczek, a middle boss in the telecommunications part, gave important proof. He said he had managed a yearly global bribery budget of $40 to $50 million and gave information about the company's 2,700 world contractors, who were usually used to send money to government leaders. Big payments were made in Argentina, Israel, Venezuela, China, Nigeria, and Russia to get big contracts.

The checks led to many trials and deals with different governments, as well as legal action against Siemens workers and those who got bribes. Big cases include two past bosses being found guilty in 2007 for paying bribes to an Italian energy company Enel, a deal with the Greek government in 2012 for 330 million euros over the Greek bribery case, and a past Siemens boss saying he paid nearly $100 million in bribes to Argentine government leaders in 2014. Siemens also had trouble with the World Bank because of false actions by its Russian part. In 2009, Siemens agreed not to bid on World Bank projects for two years and to make a $100 million fund at the World Bank to help with anti-corruption work over 15 years, called the "Siemens Integrity Initiative". Other big fines include paying ₦7 billion (US$46.57 million) to the Nigerian government in 2010, and a US$42.7 million payment in Israel in 2014 to avoid charges of securities fraud.

2006 to 2011

In 2006, Siemens bought Bayer Diagnostics which was added to the Medical Solutions Diagnostics part on 1 January 2007, also in 2006 Siemens bought Controlotron (New York) (ultrasonic flow meters), and also in 2006 Siemens bought Diagnostic Products Corp., Kadon Electro Mechanical Services Ltd. (now TurboCare Canada Ltd.), Kühnle, Kopp, & Kausch AG, Opto Control, and VistaScape Security Systems.

In January 2007, Siemens was fined €396 million by the European Commission for price fixing in EU electricity markets through a cartel with 11 companies, including ABB, Alstom, Fuji Electric, Hitachi, AE Power Systems, Mitsubishi Electric, Schneider, Areva, Toshiba and VA Tech. The commission said, "between 1988 and 2004, the companies fixed bids for buying contracts, set prices, gave projects to each other, shared markets and swapped important secret business information." Siemens was given the biggest fine of €396 million, more than half of the total, for its said main part in the activity.

In March 2007, a Siemens board member was stopped for a short time and said to have paid for AUB, a friendly work group that competes with the trade union IG Metall. He was let go on payment. Offices of AUB and Siemens were searched. Siemens said it did nothing wrong.

In April the Fixed Networks, Mobile Networks and Carrier Services parts of Siemens joined with Nokia's Network Business Group in a 50/50 joint venture, making a fixed and mobile network company called Nokia Siemens Networks. Nokia waited for the merger because of bribery checks against Siemens. In October 2007, a court in Munich said the company had paid bribes to public leaders in Libya, Russia, and Nigeria to get contracts; four past Nigerian Ministers of Communications were named as getting the payments. The company said it paid the bribes and agreed to pay a fine of 201 million euros. In December 2007, the Nigerian government cancelled a contract with Siemens because of the bribery findings.

Also in 2007, Siemens bought Vai Ingdesi Automation (Argentina, Industrial Automation), UGS Corp., Dade Behring, Sidelco (Quebec, Canada), S/D Engineers Inc., and Gesellschaft für Systemforschung und Dienstleistungen im Gesundheitswesen mbH (GSD) (Germany).

In July 2008, Siemens AG made a joint venture of the Enterprise Communications business with the Gores Group, called Unify in 2013. The Gores Group had a majority interest of 51% share, with Siemens AG having a smaller share of 49%.

In August 2008, Siemens Project Ventures put in $15 million in the Arava Power Company. In a news release that month, Peter Löscher, head and CEO of Siemens AG said: "This investment is another big step in making our green and lasting technologies stronger". Siemens now has a 40% share in the company.

In January 2009, Siemens sold its 34% share in Framatome, saying it had little say in management. In March, it made an agreement with Rosatom of Russia to work in nuclear-power.

In April 2009, Fujitsu Siemens Computers became Fujitsu Technology Solutions after Fujitsu bought Siemens's share of the company.

In June 2009 news came out that Nokia Siemens had given tools to the Iranian telecom company that could watch and stop calls, known as "lawful intercept". The tools were thought to have been used to stop the 2009 Iranian election protests, leading to words against the company, including from the European Parliament. Nokia Siemens later sold its call watching business, and made less work in Iran.

In October 2009, Siemens signed a $418 million deal to buy Solel Solar Systems, an Israeli company in the solar thermal power business.

In December 2010, Siemens agreed to sell its IT Solutions and Services part for €850 million to Atos. As part of the deal, Siemens agreed to take a 15% share in the bigger Atos, to be held for at least five years. Also, Siemens made a seven-year deal worth about €5.5 billion, where Atos will give managed services and systems joining to Siemens. At the same time, Germany's Wegmann Group bought Siemens's 49-percent share in armoured vehicle maker Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH, making Wegmann the only owner of KMW, waiting for government approval.

2011 to present

In March 2011, it was decided to list Osram on the stock market in the autumn, but CEO Peter Löscher said Siemens planned to keep a long-term share in the company, which was already separate from technology and management.

In September 2011, Siemens, which had made all 17 of Germany's current nuclear power plants, said it would leave the nuclear sector after the Fukushima disaster and the changes in German energy policy. Chief executive Peter Löscher supported the German government's plan for Energiewende, its change to green energy, calling it a "project of the century" and saying Berlin's aim of reaching 35% green energy by 2020 was possible.

In November 2012, Siemens bought the Rail part of Invensys for £1.7 billion. In the same month, Siemens bought a privately held company, LMS International NV.

In August 2013, Nokia bought all of the company Nokia Siemens Networks, with a buy-out of Siemens AG, ending Siemens part in telecommunication.

In August 2013, Siemens got a $966.8 million order for power plant parts from oil company Saudi Aramco, the biggest offer it has ever had from the Saudi company.

In 2014, Siemens said it would build a $264 million factory for making offshore wind turbines in Paull, England, as Britain's wind power grows fast. Siemens chose the Hull area on the east coast of England because it is near other big offshore projects planned for future years. The new factory is set to start making turbine blade parts in 2016. The factory and the service centre, in Green Port Hull nearby, will use about 1,000 workers. The places will help the UK market, where the electricity that big power makers make from wind grew by about 38 percent in 2013, making about 6 percent of all electricity, based on government numbers. There are also plans to grow Britain's wind-making ability at least three times by 2020, to 14 gigawatts.

In May 2014, Rolls-Royce agreed to sell its gas turbine and compressor energy business to Siemens for £1 billion.

In June 2014, Siemens and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said they would make joint ventures to bid for Alstom's troubled energy and transport parts (in trains, steam turbines, and plane engines). A rival offer by General Electric (GE) has been talked about by French government workers, who see Alstom's work as a "very important national interest" at a time when French unemployment is above 10% and some voters are turning to the far-right.

In 2015, Siemens bought U.S. oilfield tools maker Dresser-Rand Group Inc for $7.6 billion.

In November 2016, Siemens bought EDA company Mentor Graphics for $4.5 billion.

In November 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice said three Chinese workers of Guangzhou Bo Yu Information Technology Company Limited were charged with hacking into business groups, including Siemens AG.

In December 2017, Siemens bought the medical technology company Fast Track Diagnostics for an unknown amount.

In August 2018, Siemens bought rapid application development company Mendix for €0.6 billion in cash.

In May 2018, Siemens bought J2 Innovations for an unknown amount.

In May 2018, Siemens bought Enlighted, Inc. for an unknown amount.

In September 2019, Siemens and Orascom Construction signed an deal with the Iraqi government to rebuild two power plants, which is thought to set the company up for future deals in the country.

In December 2019, Siemens bought Pixeom, Inc. for an unknown amount.

In 2019–2020, Siemens was named as a main engineering company helping the argued Adani Carmichael coal mine in Queensland (Australia).

In January 2020, Siemens signed a deal to buy 99% of Indian switchgear maker C&S Electric at €267 million (₹2,100 crore). The buy was approved by the Competition Commission of India in August 2020.

In April 2020, Siemens bought a 77% majority share in Indian building service provider iMetrex Technologies for an unknown price.

In April 2020, Siemens Energy was made as a separate company from the energy part of Siemens. In August 2020, Siemens Healthineers AG said it plans to buy U.S. cancer device and software company Varian Medical Systems in a all-stock deal worth $16.4 billion.

In February 2021, Roland Busch took the place of Joe Kaeser as CEO.

In October 2021, Siemens bought the building IoT software and hardware company Wattsense for an unknown price.

In May 2022, Siemens said it would stop its work in Russia after 170 years and end any work with the Russian government because of the going war of aggression against Ukraine. This choice affected the about 3,000 workers for the company in the country. The news came with a money saying in which Siemens showed a second-quarter loss of about US$625 million as a right result of the imposed sanctions on Russia.

In July 2022, Siemens bought ZONA Technology, an airplane testing company.

In October 2022, Siemens said a big plan with Swedish electric truck maker Volta Trucks to give and grow eMobility charging tools to make the change to fleet power driving simpler.

In October 2022, Siemens was named as a target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement because of its deal for the EuroAsia Interconnector, which is planned to join the electricity grids of Greece and Cyprus with both Israel and its illegal settlements in the West Bank.

In June 2023, Siemens said a world plan to put in €2 billion to grow its making places, including special promises of €200 million for a new high-tech factory in Singapore and €140 million to make bigger a place in Chengdu, China. The plan aims to help growth in Asia, make more in the Chinese market, and make less use of one country by using Singapore as a main place to send to Southeast Asia. At the same time, Siemens will put in €1 billion for new places and factories in Germany, including €500 million to make bigger and update a factory in Erlangen, expected to make making ability 60% more by 2029. This comes when the German government has worries about money and safety risks with putting money in China. More German money will go to a new computer chip factory in Forchheim and a learning place for Siemens Healthineers in Erlangen.

In August 2023, it was said Siemens had signed a deal to buy the Veldhoven-headquartered eBus, eTruck and passenger vehicle fast charging tools company, Heliox.

In March 2024, Siemens said the making of a new £100m digital design place in Wiltshire, UK, to change its old rail design factory in Chippenham with a new study and making place, set to open by 2026. The move is backed by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as "a big help" for UK making.

In March 2024, it was said Siemens had agreed to buy ebm-papst's industrial drive technology (IDT) division for an unknown price.

Since Roland Busch became top boss, Siemens made more work with digital tools. The company made deals with NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to put man-made thinking and web tools into its software and making tools.

On March 26, 2025, Siemens finished buying Altair Engineering for about US$10 billion, its biggest deal so far. The buy put Altair's testing software into the Siemens Xcelerator place. After, the company began making an Industrial Foundation Model, an AI system trained on technical data, such as 3D models and design drawings, to make making work faster and join design with making.

In July 2025, Siemens finished buying Dotmatics, a maker of Life Sciences testing software, for $5.1 billion, growing its place in the Life Sciences area.

In October 2025, Siemens said a deal with rhobot.ai to sell an edge-native man-made thinking answer for making, sold through the Siemens Xcelerator digital market. The answer, put to work with no stopping at CarbonAMS's dirty-power place in Ireland, got a 39% less extra use and a 2.5% more gas out.

In January 2026, it was said that Siemens had bought ASTER Technologies, a French maker of printed circuit board testing and design software. The buy was to make Siemens' testing design better and make its computer design and making software better.

Operations

Siemens is a big company that works on many important things. As of 2023, its main parts include Digital Industries, Smart Infrastructure, Siemens Mobility, Siemens Healthineers, and Siemens Financial Services. Siemens Healthineers and Siemens Mobility work separately. In 2020, Siemens split its energy work into a new company called Siemens Energy AG, but Siemens still owns part of it.

Digital Industries

Digital Industries helps factories and other industries work better. It makes tools for controlling machines, computers for planning and testing, and systems that connect machines to the internet.

Smart Infrastructure

Siemens Smart Infrastructure helps build safer and smarter buildings, makes electricity systems work better, and creates products for electrical use. It designs systems for heating and cooling buildings, safety tools, and equipment to make electricity safer and more efficient.

Siemens Mobility

Siemens Mobility works on trains and other ways people move. It makes trains for cities, regions, and long distances, and also provides services to help trains run smoothly.

Siemens Healthineers

Siemens Healthineers makes and sells medical tools and services to help doctors and hospitals. It creates machines for seeing inside the body, tools for testing, and special treatments for diseases like cancer.

Siemens Financial Services

Siemens Financial Services helps with money matters. It offers loans, leasing, and advice on financial risks to help Siemens and other companies manage their money better.

Corporate affairs

Siemens is a big company based in Germany, with its main office located in Munich.

In 2023, Siemens made €77.7 billion in sales. Its shares were worth over US$93 each, and the total value of the company was US$147 billion. Siemens and SAP were the only German companies among the top 100 most valuable companies in the world.

Siemens works in about 190 countries and has around 285 factories. In 2023, the company spent €6.1 billion on new ideas and inventions. As of 2022, Siemens had about 46,900 people working on new projects and held around 43,600 patents around the world.

The company is led by a group of managers, with Roland Busch as the main leader. The Siemens family still owns a part of the company, but most of it is owned by other investors around the world.