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Sony Brand Story; From the production of rice cookers to becoming one of the most famous companies in the world

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Sony
Sony has released many innovative products to the market and today it is considered one of the most well-known companies in the world.

Sony brand story; From the production of rice cookers to becoming one of the most famous companies in the world

Sony is a Japanese multinational company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. This company provides electrical services, gaming, entertainment, and financial services.

Sony is known as one of the pioneers in the production of electrical products and in recent years it has improved its position among the top companies in the world. Sony consists of many subsidiaries, the most famous of which are Sony Pictures, Sony Music, Sony Mobile, Sony Entertainment, and Financial Holding.

The story of the formation of the Sony brand

Masaru Ibuka returned to Tokyo from World War II in September 1945 to start a new job in the Japanese capital. He set up his workshop in an old, war-torn building with only eight employees. Their initial office walls were full of cracks and had no windows, but over time as their business progressed, the office building also improved.

In October of that year, Ibuka and his group launched a new company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogi, or Tokyo Institute of Communications Research. At that time, everyone was eager to work in the new company and wanted to use their engineering knowledge to rebuild Japan. However, no one knew where to start. Most of the employees were paid from Ibuka’s small savings and they had to work hard to survive.

The story of the formation of Sony goes back to 1945; When Masaru Ibuka returned from World War II

At that time and during the Second World War, people were thirsty to hear the news of the day. As a result, they came up with an interesting idea that changed the fate of the company forever. Most of the radios at that time were either destroyed by the war or could not receive radio waves due to police interference.

The Ibuka company repaired broken radios and also made it possible to receive waves using a series of converters. It didn’t take long for this model of radio to gain many fans among people.

Their business was in the center of attention and for this reason one of the Japanese newspapers published an article about them. This article not only got them more customers but also brought Ibuka’s old friend, Akio Morita, closer to him.

Sony
Ibuka and Morita, the founders of Sony Corporation, first met on a research committee studying new types of war weapons.

After some time passed, despite the big age difference, a deep friendship between Ibuka and Morita was formed. After the end of the war, Morita returned to his hometown and the communication between them was cut off. Until one day he read his friend’s name in a newspaper article and called Ibuka. Ibuka also asked him to get to Tokyo as soon as possible to start working with him again.

Sony’s brand name was originally supposed to be TTK or Totsuko

They were looking for a new name to advertise their company globally. Their intention was to choose the abbreviation of the company’s name, TTK, for advertising, but this name was already used. The word Totsuko was also another suggested name. But during his trip to America, Morita realized that it is difficult for Americans to pronounce this name.

They finally chose the name Sony from the combination of 2 words Sonus meaning sound and Sonny meaning young boy. Their purpose in choosing this name was to pronounce it in the same way in all languages ​​of the world.

The company’s first product was a rice cooker, which, contrary to expectations, failed to meet expectations and failed. They did not get discouraged after their first failure and devoted more money to research. They focused on developing products that would benefit the Japanese people.

Sony; The first brand

During 77 years of operation, Sony has been able to launch the first product in many markets of the world. From Japan’s first tape recorder to Japan’s first transistor radio and other products.

Tape recorder

Sony

In 1950, the first Japanese tape recorder was made from its American model. This device was also not well received until Sony released a translated version of 999 Ways to Use the tape recorder.

After people became familiar with the product’s uses, the purchase request increased and the Sony tape recorder sold well. The demand for this product increased so much that the company had to expand its facilities to produce orders.

Transistor radio

Japan’s first transistor radio was introduced in 1955 by Sony.

Portable TV

Sony

In 1960, Sony released the world’s first portable transistor TV. Sony used radio technology to produce this device.

The televisions of that time were big and in every house, a specific room was reserved for them. But these products brought a new definition of personal televisions to the market.

Video tape player

Sony

In 1971, Sony unveiled another product. This player was able to show videotapes in color inside the TV.

Masaru Ibuka retired in 1976 and was succeeded by Akio Morita as CEO.

The first generation Walkman

Sony

In 1979, Sony launched the first generation of Walkmans. These devices were portable and customers could listen to their favorite cassettes anywhere.

Many employees of the company believed that this device could not become popular among people without the ability to record sound. But contrary to their belief, this device introduced a new and successful lifestyle among people and achieved remarkable success.

The first CD player

Sony

The world’s first CD player was launched in 1982 by Sony.

One of Sony’s senior managers, Norio Oga, was elected as the company’s CEO in 1989. Sony bought Columbia Pictures in the same year. This action was considered the biggest purchase of a Japanese company at that time.

PlayStation

Sony

PlayStation is another important product of Sony. This product was sold in the Japanese market in 1994 and entered America and Europe in 1995.

PlayStation became so popular among people that its sales reached 10 million units by the end of 1996, and in 1998, about 50 million of this console had been sold. The production of new models of this product continues and today PlayStation 5 is considered the newest Sony console.

Digital camera

Sony

The first digital camera was launched by Sony in 1995. This device was very well built and recorded high-quality videos.

Sony Mobile

Design of Xperia One Mark 4

Sony Mobile Company started working in 2001 in cooperation with Ericsson. The company’s products were first marketed under the name of Sony Ericsson until Sony bought Ericsson’s shares in 2012. Since then, the phones of this company have entered the market under the name of Sony.

In 2012, Sony was able to win the title of the fourth mobile phone manufacturer. Xperia series mobile phones are the current flagships of this company. The Xperia brand doesn’t sell much at the moment, but Sony continues to produce products.

Vaio laptop

VAIO SX14 VJS145 laptop color scheme

The first generation of Vaio laptops was launched in 1997. These laptops had a slim body and introduced a new concept of personal computers to the world.

Personal life of Masaru Ibuka

Masaru-Ibuka

Masaru Ibuka was born on April 11, 1908 in Nikko, Japan. He graduated from the university in 1933 and worked in a film production company. Ibuka joined the Navy during World War II and was a member of the investigative committee; But after some time in 1945, he left the war to start his own radio repair workshop in Tokyo.

At that time, people followed the news of the world through the radio. As a result, starting a radio-related business was a good idea for a company. Ibuka and Akio founded Sony in 1946. Ibuka used transistors to make his company’s products. Therefore, Sony was introduced to the world as one of the first companies to use this technology for non-combat purposes.

Ibuka was a member of the Navy during World War II

In 1976, Ibuka was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Tokyo. He received two other honorary doctorate degrees in 1979 and 1994 from Tokyo and American universities.

Ibuka published a book titled “Kindergarten is Too Late” in 1971. In this book, he claimed that the most important time for human learning is from birth to three years old. As a result, he has suggested ways to teach skills to children at this time.

Ibuka was the leader of Sony until 1976 and then he retired; But even after that, he had a close relationship with company managers and guided them. He died in 1997 at the age of 89 due to heart failure.

Personal life of Akio Morita

Akio-Morita

Akio Morita was born on January 26, 1921 in Japan. He was the eldest of his four siblings. As a result, his father trained him to manage the family business.

Akio was very interested in mathematics and physics and graduated from university with a degree in physics. During World War II, he became a member of the Japanese Army’s Research Committee, and while serving, met his future business partner, Masaru Ibuka.

Morita was a huge fan of all Sony products and worked hard to promote them. For example, the size of their first production radios was slightly larger than the standard shirt pocket size. Because they wanted to market their products as pocket radios, Morita made shirts for their employees with larger pockets to show customers that these radios were pocket radios.

Sony established its first branch in America in 1960. Sony was the first Japanese company to enter the US stock market. In 1994, Morita suffered a stroke while playing tennis and resigned from the chairmanship of Sony. He finally died of pneumonia in 1999 at the age of 78.

Sony failures

Sony logo on Sony headquarters building on clear sky day glass building

Since its establishment in 1964, Sony has produced successful and innovative products. Many of these products were entering the market for the first time, and as a result, they introduced a new concept of technology to the world; But no success story is without failures.

Sony Aibo

Front view of Sony Aibo robotic dog

Sony robots were launched in 1999. These robots were in the form of cute dogs and had the power to learn. These robots could show emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear and disinterest.

Sony robots were sold at a price of $2,500 and were very popular among their owners. But its high price prevented it from increasing its popularity and eventually, Sony stopped production.

Vaio music device

Sony Vaio music player

In 1979, Sony introduced a new concept of portability to the market by presenting its Walkman. The company had been Apple’s fierce competitor in digital music for two years, but its first product did not perform well.

The biggest mistake of the company was the dependence of files on the ATRACT format. Files with this format could only be used in Sony minidiscs. The ability to share files was the first word in digital music in 2000, and all files were released in MP3 format. As a result, this issue became a big challenge for Sony.

Sony e-Villa

Sony E-Villa with keyboard

In 2001, many companies were offering Internet home appliances, including dedicated terminals for accessing the Internet and web browsers. Sony e-Villa was also a product that was launched with the same purpose.

The e-villa had a 15-inch monitor and a 56 kbps dial-up modem. e-Villa was designed to have access to email services and websites. At that time, there was a lot of competition between these devices and people preferred to use devices with Windows XP. As a result, Sony stopped the production of these products after three months.

Sony Airboard

Sony Airboard from the front

10 years before people became interested in watching videos on tablets, Sony launched a device called Airboard. The tablets of this family were 10 inches and had the possibility to connect to Wi-Fi and broadcast TV channels.

Using the picture-in-picture feature, users could search the Internet and watch TV. This device never caught on because people thought it was just a portable and expensive TV. Therefore, its production was stopped before entering the American market.

Sony PSX

Sony PSX console

In 2003, Sony combined its two products, the PlayStation 2 and the video recorder, and marketed it as a single product. Using this product, customers could record the TV show on the storage memory or DVD at the same time as the game experience.

But the PSX, which was released only in Japan, was much larger and heavier than the PlayStation. Although this product did not have a high price, it could never attract many customers.

The current state of the Sony brand

Sony

Sony is one of the largest Japanese companies by revenue. The company reached the peak of profitability in the 1990s and 2000s due to the launch of its PlayStations, but faced financial problems in the late 2000s.

Read more: Samsung brand story; Full-view mirror of Korea’s commercial history

The global financial crisis, increased competition with PlayStation, and the earthquake in Japan in 2011 went hand in hand with Sony experiencing major failures for three years.

Due to the negative effects caused by natural disasters and exchange rates, the Times magazine called Sony a lack of flexibility and inability to measure the economy, but Sony was able to overcome all the crises in all these years by using innovation and became one of the top companies in the world. become in the television industry.

Sony’s current slogan is Be Moved, and the company aims to emotionally excite its customers with every product it offers.

Sony was able to pocket an operating profit of 1.21 trillion yen (about 8.9 billion dollars) in fiscal year 2022, which is a new record. Sony’s revenue in the final quarter of last year grew by 35 percent to about 3.06 trillion yen ($22.5 billion).

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