Osram 511153 Electronic ballast 8W 230-240V

Osram was founded on 17 April 1906 in Berlin. The name Osram comes from two metals that were needed to make the filaments for the incandescent bulbs of the time: Osmium and Wolfram (or tungsten). It exported its filaments for the British General Electric Company. It started out as a subsidiary, before becoming a company in its own right when three major German companies, AEG, Auergesellschaft and Siemens, joined forces to produce their light bulbs in 1919, in order to pool their resources in post-war Germany. It was at this time that the emblematic logo, the light bulb on an orange background, was born. In 1970, Osram created a revolution by inventing the HMI discharge lamp, a filamentless bulb. Two electrodes directly excited the rare gas atoms enclosed in the bulb. This bulb is four times more efficient with less energy loss. It was the biggest revolution in light bulbs after Edison's. Osram quickly became a leader in light bulbs and was the first to embark on the race to save energy. However, Osram was hit by the crisis in 2008, and was spun off from Siemens to be floated on the stock market. Today, the company is back to record sales (€5 billion) and its sales of energy-saving lamps account for 66% of its total sales.