Phonogram Incorporated was started in 1970 as a successor to Philips Phonographic Industries, a unit of the Grammophon-Philips Group (GPG), a joint venture of Philips N.V. of the Netherlands and Siemens A.G. of Germany. Phonogram was the name of a parent company that owned and or distributed many different record labels. Phonogram was never a record label as such, but a holding company for labels which included Philips, Fontana, Vertigo and Mercury and many other licensed labels.