The Yamato Transport Company, Ltd. (ヤマト運輸株式会社) is one of Japan's largest door-to-door delivery service companies, with a market share of 41%,[2] competing closely with Japan Post Service, Sagawa Express, and Nippon Express. Their head office is in Ginza, Tokyo. The company's trademarked term for their express door-to-door delivery service, TA-Q-BIN (宅急便) was used, with permission, in the original Japanese title of Kiki's Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便) (in which Yamato is a co-producer) instead of the generic term takuhaibin (宅配便). Takkyūbin is sometimes used in Japan as a generic term for all express home delivery services, but the company defends the trademark to avoid it becoming genericized.
The company's logo is a yellow oval with a black cat carrying her kitten in her mouth, symbolizing the company's promise that they take care of items entrusted to them as though the items were their own family. The company is often colloquially referred to as 黒ねこ (Kuroneko) which means "black cat" in Japanese. The logo is as familiar in Japan as the Coca-Cola logo is in the United States. The logo was developed by founder Yasuomi Ogura.[3]