Digi-Key news & part search

Digi-Key Corporation

Based in Minnesota in North America, Digi-Key is a worldwide distributor of electronic components. The company was founded in 1972 by Dr. Ronald Stordahl in his hometown Thief River Falls which still remains Digi-Key’s headquarter. Today Digi-Key is the largest employer in the area, employing about 2000 people. The company got its name from the ‘Digi-key’ kit that Dr Stordahl initially developed and sold to amateur radio enthusiasts. Since 1985 Mr Mark Larson is company president, he joined Digi-Key in 1976 as the general manager.

Digi-Key is a full-service provider of both prototype/design and production quantities of electronic components, offering more than 1.5 million products from over 440 quality name-brand manufacturers. Digi-Key plays a dominant role in serving design engineers and the prototyping market, as well as expanding their role in supplying production quantities for OEMs and contract manufacturers.

In six years the company moved from being the 16th largest to the 5th largest electronic component distributor in North America and 9th in the world. They believe their success is based on their customer-centred business philosophy, a belief that is backed up by the EE_Times 2007 industry survey in which engineers rated Digi-Key No 1 for overall performance, for the 16th consecutive year.

Unlike many of their competitors, Digi-Key is operating from just one single location, Thief River Falls, Minnesota, US. From here products are shipped worldwide from a 600.000 square feet distribution centre. The centre stocks over 470,000 products.

Digi-Key has created nearly 900 jobs since 2002 and the average age of a Digi-Key employee is 41 years whilst the average length of employment is seven years.

According to the company website Digi-Key ships 99.9% of their orders same day. (For orders received by 8:00 pm US central time). Over 1 million product catalogues are mailed out every year and the product range is also available from an online interactive catalogue or as a PDF document from the website.

History

Whilst still in college Ronald A Stordahl assembled and started selling his digital electronic keyer kit used for sending radiotelegraphic code by ham radio operators. He gained a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, the keyer kit was discontinued and in 1972 he began selling electronic components.

• 1972: Founded by Dr Ronald Stordahl
• 1976: Mark Larson joined the company as a general manager
• 1982: Digi-Key start targeting catalogue mailings to the commercial market
• 1985: Mark Larson is made company president
• 1986: A website is launched offering complete e-commerce capabilities
• 2009: Named global catalogue distributor of the year by Tyco Electronics
• 2010: Despite worldwide recession, January and February 2010 became record sales months for Digi-Key. Today the company reach annual sales of $926 million

Online Presence

Digi-Key now hosts 22 websites in eight languages. The website offers complete e-commerce capabilities with a sophisticated multi-million dollar product inventory. The order fulfilment system enables Digi-Key to process orders in only 15 minutes. Every year the company processes hundreds of thousands of internet orders from around the world. The website provides visitors with an easy to use part search facility helping them find exactly what they are looking for.

National websites are available for Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom and United States. The company plans to add more international websites in the near future.

The US catalogue is available to customers from any country even those countries that have their own Digi-Key version.

Product Range

Over the years, Digi-Key has done business with many different and interesting customers. Components purchased from Digi-Key are used in satellites orbiting the earth and they have sold components to Paramount Pictures for use in science fiction movies. Barry Goldwater once purchased a digital clock kit; Disneyland and the Space Agency are also included on their customer list. Clients also include 3M, Analog Devices, Atmel and Panasonic. In fact, 99 of the top 100 electronic companies in the United States have done business with Digi-Key.

For an overview of the range of products supplied by Digi-Key here follows a list of product types stocked:

Audio Products, Batteries, Battery Assemblies/Packs, Books/Videos/CD-ROMs, Cable Assemblies, Cable/Wire Management, Cable Wire, Capacitors, Card Readers, Computer and Video Accessories, Connectors, Crystals and Oscillators, Discrete Semiconductor Products, Fans, Fiber Optics, Filters, Hardware/Fasteners Accessories, Inductors/Coils/Chokes, Industrial Controls Meters, Integrated Circuits (ICs), Integrated Circuits/Modules/Units for RF and RFID, Isolators, Kits, Line Protection/Backups, Memory Cards/Modules, Motors/Solenoids, Optoelectronics, Over Voltage/Current/Temperature Devices, Potentiometers/Variable Resistors, Power Supplies, Printers and Accessories, Programmers/Development Systems, Prototyping Products, Replays, Resistors, Sensors/Transducers, Sockets for ICs/Transistors, Soldering/Desoldering Rework Products, Static Control/Clean Room Products, Switches, Tapes/Adhesives, Test and Work Bench Equipment, Thermal Management, Tools, Transformers

Present and Future

Despite the global economic downturn, Digi-Key plans to hire more than 400 new employees in 2010. This is necessary to keep up with the high demands that follow the company’s recent rapid growth in a strong electronics market. By adding more suppliers and further products from present suppliers the company is now gaining a wider customer base.

Contact: 701 Brooks Avenue South, Thief River Falls, MN 56701 USA
Freephone: 0-800-587-0991 or 0-800-904-7786 Freefax: 0-800-587-0992 or 0-800-904-7783

The Digi-Key Corporation is also present on Twitter http://twitter.com/digikey, Facebook http://www.facebook.com/digikey.corporation and YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/digikey. Digi-Key’s over 2000 Twitter followers can amongst other things get involved in the Twrivia Thursday and Monday Mash.