Who Owns Walkman?

Walkman was launched on July 1, 1979, by Sony Corporation as a portable cassette tape player. The device was conceived by Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka, who wanted a way to listen to music during his frequent long-haul flights. Sony engineer Nobutoshi Kihara developed the prototype, and Sony chairman Akio Morita championed the product despite initial skepticism from Sony's marketing team, who doubted consumers would want a device that could only play (not record) music.

The original Walkman TPS-L2 was priced at approximately $150 in the United States and sold out almost immediately upon launch. The product created an entirely new category of consumer electronics: the personal stereo. Within a year, Sony had sold over a million units, and the Walkman had become a global phenomenon. The word "Walkman" entered common usage in many languages as a generic term for portable cassette players, similar to how "Xerox" became synonymous with photocopying.

Throughout the 1980s, Walkman dominated the portable music market with dozens of models ranging from basic to feature-rich. Sony introduced the Discman (later renamed CD Walkman) in 1984, extending the brand to compact disc players. The brand continued to evolve through the 1990s with MiniDisc Walkmans, which were particularly popular in Japan.

The rise of digital music and MP3 players in the late 1990s and early 2000s presented a major challenge to Walkman. Apple's iPod, launched in 2001, quickly became the dominant portable music player and significantly eroded Walkman's market position. Sony responded by launching digital Walkman MP3 players, but the iPod's superior user experience and iTunes integration gave Apple a commanding lead.

Sony revived the Walkman brand for high-resolution audio players in the 2010s, targeting audiophiles who wanted superior sound quality compared to smartphones. The current Walkman lineup focuses on premium digital audio players (DAPs) with high-resolution audio support, balanced audio outputs, and premium components, positioning the brand as a luxury audio product rather than a mass-market device.

Today, Walkman also exists as a music app on Xperia smartphones, maintaining the brand's connection to mobile music listening while acknowledging that most consumers use their smartphones as their primary music device.