Fujitsu: The company behind Post Office's Horizon IT system - what do they do, other contracts and net worth

Between 1999 and 2015 the Post Office pursued sub-post offices across the UK for alleged theft, fraud and false accounting based on information from its Horizon IT system installed in the late 1990s. 

The scandal is frequently described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history, as around about 3,500 branch owner-operators were wrongly accused of taking money from their businesses, and more than 700 were prosecuted by the Post Office despite protesting their innocence and raising issues with the software in their defence.

The software used was a new electronic accounting system called Horizon which was installed in the late 1990s and was produced by Fujitsu. But who is Fujitsu, what other contracts does it have and who owns it? Here is what you need to know. 

The History of Fujitsu

Fujitsu Limited is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation which was established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. In 2021, the firm became the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue and the largest in Japan - it now has approximately 126,400 employees and its products and services are available in approximately 180 countries.

The UK-based Fujitsu Services Ltd, which houses the Japanese firm’s UK and Irish businesses, posted pre-tax profits of £22m in 2022, on revenues of £1.3bn, the accounts show. Fujitsu is owned by Furukawa Group, one of Japan's 15 largest industrial groups. According to Forbes, the company has a net worth of $27.67bn. 

What products/services does Fujitsu offer?

Fujitsu provides services and consulting as well as a range of products including computing products, software, telecommunications, and microelectronics. This means it covers creating databases, cloud computing, PCs, notebooks, slates, supercomputers, software, services, telecommunications and more. 

Who is Fujitsu contracted with?

Since the Post Office stopped prosecuting its staff, the firm has won over 150 UK government contracts and is still one of the government's 'strategic suppliers', which typically means it receives over £100 million in contracts per year. One of its contracts includes the Environment Agency, which extended its flood alerts contract with Fujitsu in December, spending an extra £2 million on the agreement to keep it in place until December 2025.

However, Downing Street said Fujitsu will be “held accountable” legally or financially if the public inquiry finds it blundered in the Horizon scandal. The PM's spokesperson said: “Our position is that once the inquiry is able to establish the facts and sets them out, those who are found responsible will be held to account, whether that is legally or financially, but again, I can’t prejudge that independent work.”