The end of the Walkman
27 October 2010 | 
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Launched in 1979, the Walkman has become synonymous with portable, personal music. Sony has now ceased production of the Walkman for their domestic Japanese market after 31 years and over 200 million sales worldwide.
This innovative product created an audio sector that was over 3 million units of personal stereos per annum in the UK alone, with Sony taking over 30% market share.
On the 30th anniversary of the Walkman Time magazine wrote a good history of the product.
Today the Daily Telegraph and most of the media have reported on the end of the Walkman.
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Posted in Marketing, Music marketing | 
Tags: audio, innovation, Japan, music, personal stereo, Sony, Walkman
So were Sony caught napping, they had major market share in portable personal music, where are they in the MP3 market?
The story here is that Sony were always good at mechanical solutions i.e. the Walkman. If it needed software it wasn’t their strength.
Then along came Apple…they delivered a software solution that worked.
1980s guru = Akio Morita
1990s guru = Steve Jobs
Sony have been catching up though and continue to be a considerable force to reckon with.