The oldest continually used brand name in recorded sound, dating back to 1888.

In early 1925 Columbia began recording with the new electric recording process licensed from Western Electric.

In 1931, the English Columbia Graphophone Company merged with the Gramophone Company to form Electric & Musical Industries Ltd. (EMI). EMI was forced to sell its American Columbia operations because of anti-trust concerns to the American Record Corporation (ARC). ARC, including the Columbia label in the USA, was bought by Columbia Broadcasting System in 1938.

In 1948, Columbia introduced the LP record format.

Columbia became the most successful record company in the 1950s.

Until 1987, EMI owned the British and European rights to the Columbia brand and CBS owned the US rights.

When Sony acquired CBS Records in 1988, it then acquired from EMI its former rights to the Columbia trademarks outside the US, Canada and Japan (Columbia Graphophone), which generally had not been used by EMI since the 1960s.

Sony BMG continues to use the Columbia Records brand in all markets except Japan (where that division is called Sony Records and is still fully owned by Sony).