This company was incorporated in New Jersey on January 27, 1896, to succeed the North American Phonograph Company and to return control of both the marketing and manufacturing of the phonograph to Edison. Within six months of the formation of the company, its profits were assigned to Edison in exchange for his technical improvements in the phonograph. Its foreign department, which also supervised the overseas interests of the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Bates Manufacturing Company, operated distribution offices, recording studios, and factories for manufacturing phonograph records in Great Britain, Germany, France, and Belgium, along with distribution subsidiaries in Australia and Mexico. In February 1911 the company was reorganized as part of the newly formed Thomas A. Edison, Inc.