Nippo Batteries Company (NIPPO), a joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial Company of Japan, manufactures and markets batteries and torches. It was incorporated in July 1972. The company has a wide range of zinc carbon/manganese batteries in sizes of R6 (AA), R14 (C), R20 (D), and R3 (AAA). Nippo Batteries was the first to launch zinc chloride heavy duty batteries in India. It has the ISI mark on its products manufactured in India and has environment friendly no mercury added batteries in the AA segment. The company has a wide range of torches like the Diamond cut reflector in durable polypropylene torches, the unique radium torches which can be easily identified in the dark, and the recent energy-saving torch lights using the latest technology light emitting diode (LED). The unique feature in Nippo LED torches is that they do not have switch/bulb. The LED life is about 100,000 hours. The manufacturing units at Nellore and Thada in Andhra Pradesh have produced over 10.78 billion batteries till the end of 2006. Niippo Batteries is accredited with the TUV CERT certification for QM systems of RWTUV systems GmbH since 1996. The company is certified with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. Recent awards include the AOTS CUMI 5S Excellence Award for 2006 and the Technology Innovation in Information Technology - 2006 by AC Nielsen CIO Jury. The company has 7 distributors, over 30,000 stockists, 1,000 vans and 500 autos covering over 700,000 retail outlets across India. The registered office of the company is located at Pottipati Plaza, New No. 77, Nungambakkam High Road, IV Floor, Nungambakkam, Chennai-600034, Tamil Nadu.