Tokyo's Citizen Watch Co. plans to move its U.S. headquarters from El Segundo to Irvine, becoming the latest Japanese company to shift from the South Bay to Orange County.

Citizen America Inc., which sells watches, printers and other electronics, plans to relocate to Irvine by March. Company officials said they are moving in part to be closer to other Japanese companies here as well as Irvine's schools and other offerings.

"Irvine has more education facilities and better-trained employees," said Tetsuo Kasahara, president of Citizen America. "More foreign companies are there, and that's advantageous to us. Of course, there are good schools for foreign children in Irvine, and also Japanese stores."

Through the years, many Japanese executives and workers have taken to Irvine with its masterplanned neighborhoods and strong schools. Some even dub it Nihon-jin no gai-- jin-mura, or a "Japanese village." About 5,000 Japanese nationals are estimated to live in Irvine, along with scores of JapaneseAmericans.

There are broader strategic reasons behind Citizen's move, Kasahara said

Citizen wanted its own warehouse, for starters, he said. The company now rents storage space at a 32,000-square-foot Long Beach warehouse.

"We need our own warehouse to control modifications to our products," Kasahara said.

Citizen imports electronics, printers and liquid-crystal displays from China and Japan.

"We modify our products to meet the specifications of our customers here and elsewhere in North America and Latin America," Kasahara said.

Kasahara also said the company wanted to be a bit closer to Baja California and its border plants. Citizen ships some products to Tijuana for assembly and modification work.

The company is set to have more than 31,000 square feet of space for warehousing and its headquarters at 2102 Alton Parkway. The company's El Segundo office is 7,000 square feet.

Citizen has about 30 workers and plans to add several more in the next year, according to Kasahara.

Citizen America counted sales of $30 million last year, down from $60 million in 2001, according to Kasahara. Companywide, Citizen counts yearly sales of about $2.5 billion.

A shift away from computer memory cards brought down revenue but boosted profits at Citizen America, Kasahara said. While revenue fell by half last year, the company reported $200,000 in profits, the same as 2001, he said.

"We used to sell a lot of memory products, but the profit margins for those were not so high," he said. "So I shifted our sales strategy from consumer to industrial products."

The company's customers include Seattlebased Airborne Express Inc., Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co., Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co.

Rivals include Vernon Hill, Ill.-based Zebra Technologies Corp., Everett, Wash.based Intermec Technologies Corp. and Fremont's American KSS Inc., part of Japan's Kinseki Ltd.

Citizen joins a number of big Japanese companies that have relocated U.S. head and regional offices from Los Angeles County to OC.

Decades ago, the companies picked the South Bay as a U.S. beachhead because of its relative proximity to Japan and to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Japanese companies first arrived in OC in the 1970s from the South Bay and other parts of Los Angeles County. The big wave came in 1980s, during Japan's bubble economy era.

Among the Japanese companies here: Toshiba Corp., Ricoh Co., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Sony Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp.

Along with Cypress, Irvine became a favorite for Japanese to live and set up shop, in part because of the quality of schools for Japanese children, availability of space and lower crime rates.

Citizen America also has sales offices in Dallas and in Dunstable, Mass. The company's three-year lease in Irvine is valued at $750,000. Ken Yoshimoto of Colliers Seeley International Inc. represented Citizen America. John Collins of Professional Real Estate Services represented the landlord, RREEF.