Company Profile There was a fictional character created by a Japanese company that shook the Nation. With its significant pink bow and mini blue suspenders, Hello Kitty was the main attraction in the 40s. Sanrio company, Ltd is serving to make the world a cuter place. The company designs manufactures, markets, and distributes a vast range of gifts, greeting cards, and other products ranging from toasters to luxury cars to condominiums. By far the most popular of Sanrio’s characters, however, is hello kitty, which has inspired some 26,000 products and rivals Mickey Mouse as one of the top contemporary cartoon characters (Huang, 1999) Hello Kitty represents some 5,000 of the 15,000 available Sanrio products. The Hello Kitty character accounts for about half of Sanrio 's annual sales, which topped ¥139 billion (US$1.2 billion) in 2000 Sanrio also operates two amusement theme park which is the Hello Kitty dedicated Puroland and Harmonyland, located in Oita, Kyushu. Sanrio also owns or franchises a chain of more than 2,500 retail stores. Located generally in japan but including more than 200 stores in the United States. Until the mid-1970s, Sanrio 's characters were featured on items manufactured by Sanrio itself. In 1976, however, Sanrio started to expand the accomplishment of the Hello Kitty character, signing the first of a long series of licensing agreements to add Hello Kitty and many of its other characters to products such as credit cards and toys