The company was established in August of 1907 under the name of telephone factory Edisson-Kompagnie. The main products were telephones.

In 1924, a department of radio receivers was founded. The licence was bought from the German company Telefunken.

In 1929, the Swedish company Ericsson became one of the major shareholders of the company. From 1930 the official name of the factory was AS TARTU TELEFONIVABRIK (Tartu Telephone Factory), production was in addition labelled with Ericsson, and the trademark was TTV.

On 16 December 1940, the factory was nationalised and factory no 382 was established. Most of the equipment and production were transported to Russia. The records of the company were also sent there. During World War II, in 1941, the factory was partially destroyed and in 1944, the buildings were totally destroyed.

After World War II on 13 November 1944, factory no 89 was founded, which was subordinated to Moscow. From 21.10.1957 the factory was called pk-32, from 31.12.1966 Tartu Kontrollaparatuuritehas (Tartu Test-Equipment Factory), where black boxes or flight recorders for both civil and military aircraft were the main products.

A "black box"

After the regaining of independence of Estonia, the state company RAS TARKON was formed on 01.12.1992.

1996 – Tarkon was privatised and Hallberg-Sekrom Fabriks AB of Sweden became the main owner.
1999 – The company was certified according to ISO 9002.
2000 – Tarkon Lehtmetall (sheet metal) was established.
2002 – The certification was upgraded to ISO 9001/2008
2005 – Tarkon earned the environmental certification ISO 14001
2006 – A factory was started up in Wuxi, China.
2008 -  Member of Hanza Group since Feb
2008 -  Tarkon earned auto industry quality certificate ISO/TS 16949
2008 -  Hanza Tarkon AS since 24.06.2008