Facts and Background

You can read about Ambu below or download:

- Ambu fact sheet (pdf)
- Ambu fact sheet in Danish (pdf)

You can find our profile brochure, strategy presentation and company video here: Company presentation.

AMBU IN BRIEF

At Ambu we develop, produce and market diagnostic and life-supporting devices for hospitals and rescue services. Ambu has three business areas:

• Airway Management

• Patient Monitoring & Diagnostics

• Emergency Care

Our most important products are ventilation products for artificial respiration and single-use electrodes for ECG tests and neurophysiological mappings. 

We sell our products all over the world. Approx. 98% of our products are sold on export markets through Ambu’s sales companies or distributors.

Ambu is listed on NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen A/S.

Number of employees

Ambu employs approximately 1,700 people of whom 200 work in Denmark and 1,500 in Ambu's sales and production companies outside Denmark.

Sales companies

Ambu USA
Ambu Germany
Ambu United Kingdom
Ambu France
Ambu Netherlands
Ambu Spain
Ambu Italy
Ambu Australia
Ambu China
Ambu Nordic 

Production companies

Xiamen, China
Penang, Malaysia 

Revenue

DKK940 million
(in latest fiscal year 2009/2010) 

MORE THAN 70 YEARS OF INNOVATION

The beginning

Ambu was founded in 1937 by Dr. Holger Hesse, who had come to Denmark from Germany.

Dr. Holger Hesse developed and manufactured the Sicca Haemometer; a product that enabled doctors to measure the blood count in a patient’s blood without having to send blood specimens to an external laboratory for analysis. The Sicca Haemometer was a success, partly because it was innovative, partly because it was extremely user-friendly and of top quality.

A world sensation: The Ambu Ventilation Bag 

In 1953, Dr. Holger Hesse met the Danish physician Dr. Henning Ruben and a fruitful teamwork began. Together they invented the Ambu Ventilation Bag, which was a revolution within resuscitation. The ventilation bag was the first portable resuscitation device that worked without a battery or an oxygen supply. The Ambu ventilation Bag is produces to this day and is used all over the world by hospitals and rescue services.

Ambu was also a pioneer in the development of manikins for first aid training. The first training manikin was introduced in 1957. 

The small company grew large

Right from the outset, Ambu was internationally orientated, and in the 1970s and 1980s the company grew enormously and expanded to include own sales companies outside Denmark. In 2001 Ambu bought the electrode company Medicotest and thus entered the area of diagnostics.

In 2004, 2005 and 2006 Ambu was declared a ”Gazelle company” by Danish business paper Børsen.

From a single room to several factories

Ambu’s first product – The Sicca Haemometer – was manufactured in a rented room in Copenhagen. Today, Ambu has factories in Denmark, China and Malaysia. For more than 70 years Ambu has developed new and better products to improve the quality of patient care.