Sony Walkman: Тариxы мен даму жолы

Series of portable media players by Sony
the Walkman brand

Walkman (ウォークマン), is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Japanese company Sony since 1979. The original Walkman started out as a portable cassette player and the brand was later extended to serve most of Sony's portable audio devices; since 2011 it consists exclusively of digital flash memory players. The current flagship product as of 2022 is the WM1ZM2 player. Walkman cassette players were very popular during the 1980s, which led to "walkman" becoming an unofficial term for personal stereos of any producer or brand. 220 million cassette type Walkmen were sold by the end of production in 2010; including digital Walkman devices such as DAT, MiniDisc, CD (originally Discman then renamed the CD Walkman) and memory type media players, it has sold approximately 400 million at this time. Portable tape players of various designs were available, but none of them were intended to be operated by a person as they were walking. In the 1970s, Brazilian inventor Andreas Pavel devised a method for carrying a player of this type on a belt around the waist, listening via headphones, but his "Stereobelt" concept did not include the required engineering advancements to yield high quality sound reproduction while the tape player was subject to mechanical shock as would be expected on a person walking. Pavel later lost his suit claiming the Walkman idea as his own. Also in 1969 Sony did have a pocket sized mono cassette recorder for journalists, the TC 50. Sony cofounder Masaru Ibuka used Sony's bulky TC D5 cassette recorder to listen to music while traveling for business. He asked the executive deputy president Norio Ohga to design a playback only stereo version optimized for walking. The metal cased blue and silver Walkman TPS L2, the world's first low cost personal stereo, went on sale in Japan on July 1, 1979, and was sold for around ¥33,000 (or $150.00). Though Sony predicted it would sell about 5,000 units a month, it sold more than 30,000 in the first two months. Eventually, in the early 1980s, Walkman caught on globally and Sony used the name worldwide. The TPS L2 was introduced in the US in June 1980. and added a radio system to some Walkman cassette models starting with the model WM F1 in 1982. The first model with Dolby noise reduction system and an auto reverse function appeared in 1982. The first ultra compact "cassette size" Walkman was introduced in 1983, model WM 20, with a telescopic case. This allowed even easier carrying of a Walkman in bags or pockets. In October 1985, the WM 101 model was the first in its class with a "gum stick" rechargeable battery. Two limited edition 10th anniversary models were released in 1989 (WM 701S/T) in Japan, made of brass and plated in sterling silver. Only a few hundred were built of each. A 15th anniversary model was also made on July 1, 1994, with vertical loading, and a 20th anniversary on July 1, 1999, with a prestige model. By 1989, 10 years after the launch of the first model, over 100 million Walkmans had been sold worldwide. 150 million units were manufactured by 1995. By 1999, 20 years after the introduction of the first model, Sony sold 186 million cassette Walkmans. Portable compact disc players led to the decline of the cassette Walkman, which was discontinued in Japan in 2010. The last cassette based model available in the US was the WM FX290W, which was first released in 2004.

The marketing of the Walkman helped introduce the idea of "Japanese ness" into global culture, synonymous with miniaturization and high technology. The "Walk men" and "Walk women" in advertisements were created to be the ideal reflections of the viewing audience. Sony implemented a marketing strategy, hiring young adults to walk around in public wearing a Walkman, offering nearby people to test out the product. Sony also hired actors to pose with the Walkman around the streets of Tokyo as an additional form of promotion. A major component of the Walkman advertising campaign was overspecialization of the device. Prior to the Walkman, the common device for portable music was the portable radio, which could only offer listeners standard music broadcasts. Having the ability to customize a playlist was a new and exciting revolution in music consumption. Potential buyers had the opportunity to choose their perfect match in terms of mobile listening technology. The ability to play one's personal choice of music and listen privately was a huge selling point of the Walkman, especially amongst teens, who greatly contributed to its success. This method of marketing to an extremely expansive user base while maintaining the idea that the product was made for each individual "[got] the best of all possible worlds—mass marketing and personal differentiation". According to Time, the Walkman's "unprecedented combination of portability (it ran on two AA batteries) and privacy (it featured a headphone jack but no external speaker) made it the ideal product for thousands of consumers looking for a compact portable stereo that they could take with them anywhere". The Walkman became an icon in 1980s culture. Headphones also started to be worn in public. This caused safety controversies in the US, which in 1982 led to the mayor of Woodbridge, New Jersey banning Walkman from being worn in public due to pedestrian accidents. In the market, the Walkman's success also led to great adoption of the Compact Cassette format. Within a few years, cassettes were outselling vinyl records, and would continue to do so until the compact disc (CD) overtook cassette sales in 1991. In German speaking countries, the use of "Walkman" became generic, meaning a personal stereo of any make, to a degree that the Austrian Supreme Court of Justice ruled in 2002 that Sony could not prevent others from using the term "Walkman" to describe similar goods. It is therefore an example of what marketing experts call the "genericide" of a brand.

In 1989, Sony released portable Video8 recorders marketed as Video Walkman, extending the brand name. In 1990 Sony released portable Digital Audio Tape (DAT) players marketed as DAT Walkman. It was extended further in 1992 for MiniDisc players with the MD Walkman brand. From 1997, Sony's Discman range of portable compact disc (CD) players started to rebrand as CD Walkman. In 2000, the Walkman brand (the entire range) was unified, and a new small icon, "W.", was made for the branding. shortly before the Walkman brand unification. Additionally, Walkman branded mobile phones were also made by the Sony Ericsson joint venture. Sony could not repeat the success of the cassette player in the 21st century digital audio player (DAP) market. Rival Apple's iPod range became a large success in the market, hindering Walkman sales internationally, though it fared better domestically. The Network Walkman for several years had paltry market share and had also been struggling against numerous other rivals such as Creative, Rio, Mpio and iRiver, although sales and share did eventually increase fivefold in 2005 and continued improving, but remained small. Its pricing policy, SonicStage software and lack of MP3 support in earlier years have been suggested factors of its performance. In Japan its share in 2009–2010 was between 43 and 48%, slightly ahead of Apple. Meanwhile, Sony Computer Entertainment, a Sony division who are not involved in Walkman products, officially described their PlayStation Portable in 2004 as the "21st century Walkman".