Sony

Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo

Sony began in the wake of World War II. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in Shirokiya,^[23] a department store building in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. The company started with a capital of ¥190,000^[24] and a total of eight employees.^[25] On 7 May 1946, Ibuka was joined by Akio Morita to establish a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (東京通信工業, Tōkyō Tsūshin Kōgyō) (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation).^[26] The company built Japan's first tape recorder, called the Type-G.^[26][27] In 1958, the company changed its name to "Sony".^[28]

Name

Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo founders Morita and Ibuka realized that to achieve success and grow, their business had to expand to the global market, which required labeling their products with a short and easy brand name.^[29] While looking for a romanized name, they at first strongly considered using their initials, TTK. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TTK.^[26] The company occasionally used the acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name.^[30]

The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words: one was the Latin word "sonus", which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was "sonny", a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a young boy.^[31][32] In 1950s Japan, "sonny boys" was a loan word in Japanese, which connoted smart and presentable young men, which Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka considered themselves to be.^[31]

The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955, but the company name did not change to Sony until January 1958.^[33]

At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji. The move was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at the time, Mitsui, had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Bank's chairman gave their approval.^[26]

Globalization

A Sony TR-730 transistor radio made in Japan, circa 1960

According to Schiffer, Sony's TR-63 radio "cracked open the U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics."^[34] By the mid-1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5 million units by the end of 1968.

Sony co-founder Akio Morita founded Sony Corporation of America in 1960.^[25] In the process, he was struck by the mobility of employees between American companies, which was unheard of in Japan at that time.^[25] When he returned to Japan, he encouraged experienced, middle-aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider joining Sony.^[25] The company filled many positions in this manner, and inspired other Japanese companies to do the same.^[25] Moreover, Sony played a major role in the development of Japan as a powerful exporter during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s,^[35] supplying the U.S. Military with bomb parts used in the Vietnam War.^[36] It also helped to significantly improve American perceptions of "made in Japan" products.^[37] Known for its production quality, Sony was able to charge above-market prices for its consumer electronics and resisted lowering prices.^[37]

In 1971, Masaru Ibuka handed the position of president over to his co-founder Akio Morita. Sony began a life insurance company in 1979, one of its many peripheral businesses. Amid a global recession in the early 1980s, electronics sales dropped and the company was forced to cut prices.^[37] Sony's profits fell sharply. "It's over for Sony", one analyst concluded. "The company's best days are behind it."^[37]

Around that time, Norio Ohga took up the role of president. He encouraged the development of the compact disc (CD) in the 1970s and 1980s, and of the PlayStation in the early 1990s. Ohga went on to purchase CBS Records in 1988 and Columbia Pictures in 1989, greatly expanding Sony's media presence. Ohga would succeed Morita as chief executive officer in 1989.^[38]

Under the vision of co-founder Akio Morita^[39] and his successors, the company had aggressively expanded into new businesses.^[35] Part of its motivation for doing so was the pursuit of "convergence", linking film, music and digital electronics via the Internet.^[35] This expansion proved unrewarding and unprofitable,^[35] threatening Sony's ability to charge a premium on its products^[39] as well as its brand name.^[39] In 2005, Howard Stringer replaced Nobuyuki Idei as chief executive officer, marking the first time that a foreigner had run a major Japanese electronics firm. Stringer helped to reinvigorate the company's struggling media businesses, encouraging blockbusters such as Spider-Man while cutting 9,000 jobs.^[35] He hoped to sell off peripheral business and focus the company again on electronics.^[39] Furthermore, he aimed to increase cooperation between business units,^[39] which he described as "silos" operating in isolation from one another.^[40] In a bid to provide a unified brand for its global operations, Sony introduced a slogan known as "make.believe" in 2009.^[38]

Sony Style store in Bangkok, Thailand

Sony Store (after rebranding from Sony Style^[41]) in Markville Shopping Centre, Canada

Despite some successes, the company faced continued struggles in the mid- to late-2000s.^[35] In 2012, Kazuo Hirai was promoted to president and CEO, replacing Stringer. Shortly thereafter, Hirai outlined his company-wide initiative, named "One Sony" to revive Sony from years of financial losses and bureaucratic management structure, which proved difficult for former CEO Stringer to accomplish, partly due to differences in business culture and native languages between Stringer and some of Sony's Japanese divisions and subsidiaries. Hirai outlined three major areas of focus for Sony's electronics business, which include imaging technology, gaming and mobile technology, as well as a focus on reducing the major losses from the television business.^[42]

Sony Store in Nagoya, Japan

In February 2014, Sony announced the sale of its Vaio PC division to a new corporation owned by investment fund Japan Industrial Partners and spinning its TV division into its own corporation as to make it more nimble to turn the unit around from past losses totaling $7.8 billion over a decade.^[43] Later that month, they announced that they would be closing 20 stores.^[44] In April, the company announced that they would be selling 9.5 million shares in Square Enix (roughly 8.2 percent of the game company's total shares) in a deal worth approximately $48 million.^[45] In May 2014 the company announced it was forming two joint ventures with Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group to manufacture and market Sony's PlayStation game consoles and associated software in China.^[46]

In 2015, Sony purchased Toshiba's image sensor business.^[47]

It was reported in December 2016 by multiple news outlets that Sony was considering restructuring its U.S. operations by merging its TV & film business, Sony Pictures Entertainment, with its gaming business, Sony Interactive Entertainment. According to the reports, such a restructuring would have placed Sony Pictures under Sony Interactive's CEO, Andrew House, though House wouldn't have taken over day-to-day operations of the film studio.^[48][49][50] According to one report, Sony was set to make a final decision on the possibility of the merger of the TV, film, & gaming businesses by the end of its fiscal year in March of the following year (2017).^[48]

In 2017, Sony sold its lithium-ion battery business to Murata Manufacturing.^[51][52][53]

In 2019, Sony merged its mobile, TV and camera businesses.^[54][55]

On 1 April 2020, Sony Electronics Corporation was established as an intermediate holding company to own and oversee its electronics and IT solutions businesses.

On 19 May 2020, the company announced that it would rename Sony Group Corporation as of 1 April 2021. Subsequently, Sony Electronics Corporation would be renamed to Sony Corporation.^[56] On the same day the company announced that it would turn Sony Financial Holdings (currently Sony Financial Group), of which Sony already owns 65.06% of shares, to a wholly owned subsidiary through a takeover bid.^[57]

On 1 April 2021, Sony Corporation was renamed Sony Group Corporation. On the same day, Sony Mobile Communications Inc. absorbed Sony Electronics Corporation, Sony Imaging Products & Solutions Inc., and Sony Home Entertainment & Sound Products Inc. and changed its trade name to Sony Corporation.^[58]

Discover more about History related topics

History of Sony

History of Sony

Here is the further information about the history of Sony, an iconic Japanese multinational conglomerate company.

Masaru Ibuka

Masaru Ibuka

Masaru Ibuka was a Japanese electronics industrialist and co-founder of Sony, along with Akio Morita.

Nihonbashi

Nihonbashi

Nihonbashi (日本橋) is a business district of Chūō, Tokyo, Japan which grew up around the bridge of the same name which has linked two sides of the Nihonbashi River at this site since the 17th century. The first wooden bridge was completed in 1603. The current bridge, designed by Tsumaki Yorinaka and constructed of stone on a steel frame, dates from 1911. The district covers a large area to the north and east of the bridge, reaching Akihabara to the north and the Sumida River to the east. Ōtemachi is to the west and Yaesu and Kyobashi to the south.

Tokyo

Tokyo

Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital and most populous city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 million residents as of 2018; the city proper has a population of 13.99 million people. Located at the head of Tokyo Bay, the prefecture forms part of the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and is the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan.

Akio Morita

Akio Morita

Akio Morita was a Japanese entrepreneur and co-founder of Sony along with Masaru Ibuka.

Tape recorder

Tape recorder

An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present-day form, it records a fluctuating signal by moving the tape across a tape head that polarizes the magnetic domains in the tape in proportion to the audio signal. Tape-recording devices include the reel-to-reel tape deck and the cassette deck, which uses a cassette for storage.

Brand

Brand

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and store value as brand equity for the object identified, to the benefit of the brand's customers, its owners and shareholders. Brand names are sometimes distinguished from generic or store brands.

Latin

Latin

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition.

TR-55

TR-55

The TR-55, released in 1955, was both Japan's and Sony's first commercially available transistor radio. The use of transistors allowed the device to be much smaller than earlier vacuum tube radios.

Romanization of Japanese

Romanization of Japanese

The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as rōmaji .

Kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script, and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of hiragana and katakana. The characters have Japanese pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After World War II, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as shinjitai, by a process similar to China's simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3,000 kanji used in Japanese names and in common communication.

Mitsui

Mitsui

Mitsui Group is one of the largest keiretsu in Japan and one of the largest corporate groups in the world.

Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies, while its success in the early years owes to a smooth capitalization on the Digital Compact Cassette standard introduced by Philips,^[59] with which Sony went on to enjoy a decades-long technological relationship in various areas. Sony (either alone or with partners) has introduced several of the most popular recording formats, including the 3.5-inch floppy disk, compact disc and Blu-ray disc.^[60]

Video recording

A rare Japanese market Betamax TV/VCR combo, the Model SL-MV1

Sony introduced U-matic, the world's first videocassette format, in 1971, but the standard was unpopular for domestic use due to the high price.^[61] The company subsequently launched the Betamax format in 1975.^[62] Sony was involved in the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when they were marketing the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC.^[63] In the end, VHS gained critical mass in the marketbase and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs.^[63]

Betamax is, for all practical purposes, an obsolete format. Sony's professional-oriented component video format called Betacam, which was derived from Betamax, was used until 2016 when Sony announced it was stopping production of all remaining 1/2-inch video tape recorders and players, including the Digital Betacam format.^[64]

In 1985, Sony launched their Handycam products and the Video8 format.^[65] Video8 and the follow-on hi-band Hi8 format became popular in the consumer camcorder market. In 1987 Sony launched the 4 mm DAT or Digital Audio Tape as a new digital audio tape standard.^[66]

Visual display

Sony held a patent for its proprietary Trinitron until 1996.

Sony introduced the Triluminos Display, the company's proprietary color reproduction enhancing technology, in 2004, featured in the world's first LED-backlit LCD televisions.^[67] It was widely used in other Sony's products as well, including computer monitors, laptops, and smartphones.^[68] In 2013, Sony released a new line of televisions with an improved version of the technology, which incorporated quantum dots in the backlight system. It was the first commercial use of quantum dots.^[69][70]

In 2012, the company revealed a prototype of an ultrafine RGB LED display, which it calls the Crystal LED Display.^[71]

Audio recording

First Sony Walkman TPS-L2 from 1979 (Expo in Sony Building at Ginza, Chuo-Ku, Tokyo)

Sony used the Compact Cassette format in many of its tape recorders and players, including the Walkman, the world's first portable music player.^[72] Sony introduced the MiniDisc format in 1992 as an alternative to Philips DCC or Digital Compact Cassette and as a successor to the Compact Cassette.^[73] Since the introduction of MiniDisc, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against the more widely used MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 standard natively.

In 2004, Sony built upon the MiniDisc format by releasing Hi-MD. Hi-MD allows the playback and recording of audio on newly introduced 1 GB Hi-MD discs in addition to playback and recording on regular MiniDiscs. In addition to saving audio on the discs, Hi-MD allows the storage of computer files such as documents, videos and photos.

Audio encoding

In 1993, Sony challenged the industry standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound format with a newer and more advanced proprietary motion picture digital audio format called SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound).^[74] This format employed eight channels (7.1) of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at the time.^[74] Ultimately, SDDS has been vastly overshadowed by the preferred DTS (Digital Theatre System) and Dolby Digital standards in the motion picture industry. SDDS was solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony never intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS.^[75][76]

Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format (S/PDIF) and the high-fidelity audio system SACD. The latter became entrenched in a format war with DVD-Audio. Still, neither gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs had been preferred by consumers because of the ubiquitous presence of CD drives in consumer devices until the early 2000s when the iPod and streaming services became available.^[77]

In 2015, Sony introduced LDAC, a proprietary audio coding technology which allows streaming high-resolution audio over Bluetooth connections at up to 990 kbit/s at 32 bit/96 kHz. Sony also contributed it as part of the Android Open Source Project starting from Android 8.0 "Oreo", enabling every OEM to integrate this standard into their own Android devices freely. However the decoder library is proprietary, so receiving devices require licenses. On 17 September 2019, the Japan Audio Society (JAS) certified LDAC with their Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification. Currently the only codecs with the Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification are LDAC and LHDC, another competing standard.

Optical storage

Front side of a Sony 200GB Blu-ray disc

Sony demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in 1977 and soon joined hands with Philips, another major contender for the storage technology, to establish a worldwide standard.^[78] In 1983, the two company jointly announced the Compact Disc (CD). In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series, an expansion of the Walkman brand to portable CD players. Sony began to improve performance and capacity of the novel format. It launched write-once optical discs (WO) and magneto-optical discs which were around 125MB size for the specific use of archival data storage, in 1986 and 1988 respectively.^[79]

In the early 1990s, two high-density optical storage standards were being developed: one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density Disc (SD), supported by Toshiba and many others. Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with only one modification. The unified disc format was called DVD and was introduced in 1997.

Sony was one of the leading developers of the Blu-ray optical disc format, the newest standard for disc-based content delivery. The first Blu-ray players became commercially available in 2006. The format emerged as the standard for HD media over the competing format, Toshiba's HD DVD, after a two-year-long high-definition optical disc format war.

Sony's laser communication devices for small satellites rely on the technologies developed for the company's optical disc products.^[80]

Disk storage

In 1983, Sony introduced 90 mm micro diskettes, better known as 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy disks, which it had developed at a time when there were 4" floppy disks, and many variations from different companies, to replace the then on-going 5.25" floppy disks. Sony had great success and the format became dominant. 3.5" floppy disks gradually became obsolete as they were replaced by current media formats. Sony held more than a 70 percent share of the market when it decided to pull the plug on the format in 2010.^[81][82]

Flash memory

In 1998, Sony launched the Memory Stick format, the flash memory cards for use in Sony lines of digital cameras and portable music players. It has seen little support outside of Sony's own products, with Secure Digital cards (SD) commanding considerably greater popularity. Sony has made updates to the Memory Stick format with Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Micro. The company has also released USB flash drive products, branded under the Micro Vault line.^[83]

Communication

Sony introduced FeliCa, a contactless IC card technology primarily used in contactless payment, as a result of the company's joint development and commercialization of Near-Field Communication (NFC) with Philips. The standard is largely offered in two forms, either chips embedded in smartphones or plastic cards with chips embedded in them. Sony plans to implement this technology in train systems across Asia.^[84]

In 2019, Sony launched the ELTRES, the company's proprietary low-power wide-area wireless communication (LPWAN) standard.^[85]

Video Gaming

Until 1991, Sony had little direct involvement with the video game industry. The company supplied components for other consoles, such as the sound chip for the Super Famicom from Nintendo, and operated a video game studio, Sony Imagesoft.^[86] As part of a joint project between Nintendo and Sony that began as early as 1988, the two companies worked to create a CD-ROM version of the Super Famicom,^[87] though Nintendo denied the existence of the Sony deal as late as March 1991.^[88] At the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1991, Sony revealed a Super Famicom with a built-in CD-ROM drive that incorporated Green Book technology or CD-i, called "Play Station" (also known as SNES-CD). However, a day after the announcement at CES, Nintendo announced that it would be breaking its partnership with Sony, opting to go with Philips instead but using the same technology.^[89] The deal was broken by Nintendo after they were unable to come to an agreement on how revenue would be split between the two companies.^[89] The breaking of the partnership infuriated Sony President Norio Ohga, who responded by appointing Kutaragi with the responsibility of developing the PlayStation project to rival Nintendo.^[89]

The sole remaining prototype of Sony's original "PlayStation", a Super NES with a built-in CD-ROM drive

At that time, negotiations were still on-going between Nintendo and Sony, with Nintendo offering Sony a "non-gaming role" regarding their new partnership with Philips. This proposal was swiftly rejected by Kutaragi who was facing increasing criticism over his work with regard to entering the video game industry from within Sony. Negotiations officially ended in May 1992 and in order to decide the fate of the PlayStation project, a meeting was held in June 1992, consisting of Sony President Ohga, PlayStation Head Kutaragi and several senior members of Sony's board. At the meeting, Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had been working on which involved playing video games with 3D graphics to the board. Eventually, Sony President Ohga decided to retain the project after being reminded by Kutaragi of the humiliation he suffered from Nintendo. Nevertheless, due to strong opposition from a majority present at the meeting as well as widespread internal opposition to the project by the older generation of Sony executives, Kutaragi and his team had to be shifted from Sony's headquarters to Sony Music, a completely separate financial entity owned by Sony, so as to retain the project and maintain relationships with Philips for the MMCD development project (which helped lead to the creation of the DVD)

Continued research and development

In 2021, the WIPO’s annual review of the World Intellectual Property Indicators report ranked Sony's as ninth in the world for the number of patent applications published under the PCT System. 1,793 patent applications were published by Sony during 2020.^[90] This position is up from their previous ranking as 13th in 2019 with 1,566 applications.^[91]

Discover more about Formats and technologies related topics

List of Sony trademarks

List of Sony trademarks

The following are or were trademarks of the Sony Group Corporation or its subsidiaries:

Digital Compact Cassette

Digital Compact Cassette

The Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) is a magnetic tape sound recording format introduced by Philips and Matsushita Electric in late 1992 and marketed as the successor to the standard analog Compact Cassette. It was also a direct competitor to Sony's MiniDisc (MD), but neither format toppled the then-ubiquitous analog cassette despite their technical superiority, and DCC was discontinued in October 1996.

Floppy disk

Floppy disk

A floppy disk or floppy diskette is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device.

Compact disc

Compact disc

The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October 1982 in Japan and branded as Digital Audio Compact Disc.

Blu-ray

Blu-ray

The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006. It was designed to supersede the DVD format, capable of storing several hours of high-definition video. The main application of Blu-ray is as a medium for video material such as feature films and for the physical distribution of video games for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The name "Blu-ray" refers to the blue laser used to read the disc, which allows information to be stored at a greater density than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs.

Betamax

Betamax

Betamax is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, followed by the US in November of the same year.

JVC

JVC

JVC is a Japanese brand owned by JVCKenwood corporation. Founded in 1927 as the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan and later as Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. , the company is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions and for developing the Video Home System (VHS) video recorder.

Component video

Component video

Component video is an analog video signal that has been split into two or more component channels. In popular use, it refers to a type of component analog video (CAV) information that is transmitted or stored as three separate signals. Component video can be contrasted with composite video in which all the video information is combined into a single signal that is used in analog television. Unlike composite, component cables do not carry audio and are often paired with audio cables.

Betacam

Betacam

Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videocassette products developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, "Betacam" singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself.

Handycam

Handycam

Handycam is a Sony brand used to market its camcorder range. It was launched in 1985 as the name of the first Video8 camcorder, replacing Sony's previous line of Betamax-based models, and the name was intended to emphasize the "handy" palm size nature of the camera, made possible by the new miniaturized tape format. This was in marked contrast to the larger, shoulder mounted cameras available before the creation of Video8, and competing smaller formats such as VHS-C.

8 mm video format

8 mm video format

The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats. These are the original Video8 format and its improved successor Hi8, as well as a more recent digital recording format known as Digital8. Their user base consisted mainly of amateur camcorder users, although they also saw important use in the professional television production field.

Digital Audio Tape

Digital Audio Tape

Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a Compact Cassette, using 3.81 mm / 0.15" magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. The recording is digital rather than analog. DAT can record at sampling rates equal to, as well as higher and lower than a CD at 16 bits quantization. If a comparable digital source is copied without returning to the analogue domain, then the DAT will produce an exact clone, unlike other digital media such as Digital Compact Cassette or non-Hi-MD MiniDisc, both of which use a lossy data reduction system.

Best known for its electronic products, Sony offers a wide variety of product lines in many areas. At its peak, it was dubbed as a "corporate octopus", for its sprawling ventures from private insurance to chemicals to cosmetics to home shopping to a Tokyo-based French food joint, in addition its core businesses such as electronics and entertainment.^[39] Even after it has unwound many business units including Sony Chemicals and Vaio PC, Sony still runs diverse businesses.

As of 2020, Sony is organized into the following business segments: Game & Network Services (G&NS), Music, Pictures, Electronics Products & Solutions (EP&S), Imaging & Sensing Solutions (I&SS), Financial Services, and Others.^[92] Usually, each business segment has a handful of corresponding intermediate holding companies under which all the related businesses are folded into, such as Columbia Records being part of Sony Music Group, a subsidiary and, at the same time, a holding company for Sony's music businesses, along with SMEJ.

Electronics Products & Solutions

Sony at Westfield Riccarton shopping centre in Christchurch, New Zealand

Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics Corporation until 1 April 2021^[93]) is the electronics business unit of the Sony Group. It primarily conducts research and development (R&D), planning, designing, manufacturing and marketing for electronics products. Sony Global Manufacturing & Operations Corporation (SGMO) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation and responsible for managing manufacturing operations both in Japan and overseas, through its own factories as well as third party contract manufacturers.

Audio

In 1979, Sony released the world's first portable music player, the Walkman, bundled with the MDL-3L2 headphones. This line fostered a fundamental change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones.^[72][94] Originally used to refer to portable audio cassette players, the Walkman brand has been widely adopted by the company to encompass its portable digital audio and video players as well as a line of former Sony Ericsson mobile phones. In the case of optical disc players, the Discman brand was used until the late 1990s. In 1999 Sony's first portable digital audio players were introduced; one was a player using Memory Stick flash storage created by the Walkman division, and the other was a smaller pen-sized player with embedded flash storage created by the Vaio division; both accompanied with Sony's OpenMG copyright protection technology and PC software for music transfer.^[95][96] Sony continue to develop Walkman digital audio players.

Sony is a major audio products manufacturer and one of the active noise control technology leaders.^[97][98]

Video

The logo of Bravia television. Its backronym is "Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture".

Sony produced the TV8-301, the world's first all-transistor television, in 1959.^[99] In 1968, the company introduced the Trinitron brand name for its lines of aperture grille cathode ray tube televisions and afterwards computer monitors. Sony stopped production of Trinitron for most markets, but continued producing sets for markets such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. Sony discontinued its series of Trinitron computer monitors in 2005. The company discontinued the last Trinitron-based television set in the US in early 2007. The end of Trinitron marked the end of Sony's analog television sets and monitors.

Sony used the LCD WEGA name for its LCD TVs until summer 2005. The company then introduced the BRAVIA name. BRAVIA is an in-house brand owned by Sony which produces high-definition LCD televisions, projection TVs and front projectors, home cinemas and the BRAVIA home theatre range. All Sony high-definition flat-panel LCD televisions in North America have carried the logo for BRAVIA since 2005. In 2006, Sony lost its decades-long No.1 market share in the global television market. In November 2007, the Sony XEL-1, the first OLED television, was released and manufactured for two years. Later in 2013, Sony demonstrated the first 4K OLED television.^[100][101] As of 2012, Sony was the third-largest maker of televisions in the world and the business unit had been unprofitable for eight consecutive years.^[102]

From 2011, Sony started restructuring of its loss-making television business, mainly by downsizing business units and outsourcing the manufacturing of display panels to the companies like Sharp Corporation, LG Display, and Samsung Electronics.^[103] In December 2011, Sony agreed to sell all stake in an LCD joint venture with Samsung Electronics (S-LCD) for about $940 million.^[104] On 28 March 2012, Sony and Sharp announced that they have agreed to further amend the joint venture agreement originally executed by the parties in July 2009, as amended in April 2011, for the establishment and operation of Sharp Display Products Corporation ("SDP"), a joint venture to produce and sell large-sized LCD panels and modules.^[105] The agreement was eventually terminated as Sony parted ways.^[106] Sony's small-sized LCD business subsidiary and medium-to-large-sized OLED display business unit were spun off and became part of Japan Display and JOLED, respectively.^[107]

In 2017, Sony launched OLED televisions under the BRAVIA brand.^[108]

Also, Sony has sold a range of tapes, discs, recorders and players for videocassette, DVD, and Blu-ray formats for decades.

Photography and videography

A Sony Cyber-shot digital camera

A Sony α77 DSLR camera

Sony offers a wide range of digital cameras. Its point-and-shoot models are branded Cyber-shot, while DSLRs and mirrorless models are branded Alpha, though Sony no longer makes DSLRs. It also produces action cameras and camcorders, with the company's cinema-grade products being sold under the CineAlta name.

Sony demonstrated a prototype of the Sony Mavica in 1981 and released it for the consumer market in 1988. The first Cyber-shot was introduced in 1996. Sony's market share of the digital camera market fell from a high of 20% to 9% by 2005.^[109][40]

Sony entered the market for digital single-lens reflex cameras in 2006 when it acquired the camera business of Konica Minolta. Sony rebranded the company's line of cameras as its Alpha line. Sony is the world's third largest manufacturer of the cameras, behind Canon and Nikon respectively.

In 2010, Sony introduced their first mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras, which were the NEX-3 and the NEX-5. They also started a new lens mount system, which was the E-mount. There were quite a few NEX models out there, when Sony decided to melt the NEX series into the Alpha series. The first Alpha MILC was the α3000, which was introduced in August 2013. It was followed by the Full-Frame α7 and α7R in October, then the successors of the NEX-5, the NEX-6 and NEX-7, the α5000 and the α6000 in 2014. The α6000 became the most popular MILC ever and Sony became the largest MILC manufacturer.

Computing

Notebook Sony Vaio. Sony has axed its loss-making PC business in 2014.

Sony produced computers (MSX home computers and NEWS workstations) during the 1980s. The company withdrew from the computer business around 1990. Sony entered again into the global computer market under the new VAIO brand, began in 1996. Short for "Video Audio Integrated Operation", the line was the first computer brand to highlight visual-audio features.^[40]

Sony faced considerable controversy when some of its laptop batteries exploded and caught fire in 2006, resulting in the largest computer-related recall to that point in history.^{[110][111][112]}

In a bid to join the tablet computer market, the company launched its Sony Tablet line of Android tablets in 2011. Since 2012, Sony's Android products have been marketed under the Xperia brand used for its smartphones.^[113]

On 4 February 2014, Sony announced that it would sell its VAIO PC business due to poor sales^[114] and Japanese company Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will purchase the VAIO brand, with the deal finalized by the end of March 2014.^[115] As of 2018, Sony maintained a 5% stake in the new, independent company.

Healthcare and biotechnology

Sony has targeted medical, healthcare and biotechnology business as a growth sector in the future. The company acquired iCyt Mission Technology, Inc. (renamed Sony Biotechnology Inc. in 2012), a manufacturer of flow cytometers, in 2010 and Micronics, Inc., a developer of microfluidics-based diagnostic tools, in 2011.

In 2012, Sony announced that it would acquire all shares of So-net Entertainment Corporation, the largest shareholder of M3, Inc., an operator of portal sites (m3.com, MR-kun, MDLinx and MEDI:GATE) for healthcare professionals.

On 28 September 2012, Olympus and Sony announced that the two companies will establish a joint venture to develop new surgical endoscopes with 4K resolution (or higher) and 3D capability.^[116] Sony Olympus Medical Solutions Inc. (Sony 51%, Olympus 49%) was established on 16 April 2013.^[117]

On 28 February 2014, Sony, M3 and Illumina established a joint venture called P5, Inc. to provide a genome analysis service for research institutions and enterprises in Japan.^[118]

Mobility

Xperia, the product device name for a range of smartphones from Sony

A historical Sony CMD-CD5 mobile phone

Sony Xperia Z, introduced and released in 2013. The first smartphone with a Full HD display.

In 2000, Sony was a marginal player in the mobile phone market with a share of less than 1 percent. In 2001, Sony entered into a joint venture with Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, forming Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.^[119] Initial sales were rocky, and the company posted losses in 2001 and 2002. However, Sony Ericsson reached a profit in 2003. The company distinguished itself with multimedia-capable mobile phones, which included features such as cameras. These were unusual at the time. Despite their innovations, Sony Ericsson faced intense competition from Apple's iPhone, which was released in 2007. From 2008 to 2010, amid a global recession, Sony Ericsson slashed its workforce by several thousand. In 2009, Sony Ericsson was the fourth-largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world (after Nokia, Samsung and LG).^[120] By 2010, its market share had fallen to sixth place.^[121] Sony acquired Ericsson's share of the venture in 2012 for over US$1 billion.^[119] Sony Mobile focuses exclusively on the smartphone market under the Xperia brand.

In 2013, Sony contributed to around two percent of the mobile phone market with 37 million mobile phones sold.^[122] Sony Mobile's sales reached a peak in 2014 with 40 million handsets, the volume has since decreased. Sony shipped 13.5 million phones in 2017, 6.5 million in 2018, and 2.9 million handsets in FY 2020.^[123]

Robotics

Since the late 1990s, Sony has released numerous consumer robots, including dog-shaped robots called AIBO, a music playing robot called Rolly, and a humanoid robot called QRIO. Despite being a pioneer in the field, Sony had ceased robotics-related operations for 10 years due to financial difficulties, until it decided to revive them in 2016.^[124]

In 2015, Sony partnered with an autonomous driving startup ZMP INC. to establish an aerial surveillance and reconnaissance drone manufacturer named Aerosense.^[125] At the CES 2021, Sony unveiled a drone with the brand Airpeak, the smallest of its kind that can incorporate a Sony Alpha camera according to the company, entering the drone business on its own for the first time.^[126]

Imaging & Sensing Solutions

Sony traces its roots in the semiconductor business back to 1954, when it became the first Japanese company to commercialize the transistor, invented and licensed by Bell Labs, whilst some of the biggest and well-established names in Japan at the time like Toshiba and Mitsubishi Electric initially stuck with vacuum tubes they had been thriving on; despite being an expert on the vacuum tube himself, Ibuka saw potential of the novel technology and had Morita negotiate the terms for licensing, making Sony into one of the earliest and the youngest licensees of the transistor, together with Texas Instruments.^{[127][128][129]} In 1957, Sony employee Leo Esaki and his colleagues invented a tunnel diode (usually referred to as Esaki diode) by which they discovered the quantum tunneling effect in solids, for which Esaki received the Nobel prize in Physics in 1973.^[130] Sony has commanded a dominant share in the charge-coupled device market.^[131]

As of 2020, Sony is the world's largest manufacturer of CMOS image sensors as its chips are widely used in digital cameras, tablet computers, smartphones, drones and more recently, self-driving systems in automobiles.^[132]

As of 2020, the company, through its chip business arm Sony Semiconductor Solutions, designs, manufactures, and sells a wide range of semiconductors and electronic components, including image sensors (HAD CCD, Exmor), image processors (BIONZ), laser diodes, system LSIs, mixed-signal LSIs, emerging memory storage, emerging displays (microLED, microOLED, and holographic display), multi-functional microcomputer (SPRESENSE), etc.^[133]

In 2020, Sony has launched the first intelligent vision sensors with AI edge computing capabilies.^[134]

Game & Network Services

Sony Interactive Entertainment headquarters in San Mateo, California

Sony Interactive Entertainment (formerly Sony Computer Entertainment) is best known for producing the popular line of PlayStation consoles. The line grew out of a failed partnership with Nintendo. Originally, Nintendo requested Sony to develop an add-on for its Super Nintendo Entertainment System that would play CD-ROMs. In 1991 Sony announced the add-on, as well as a dedicated console known as the "Play Station". However, a disagreement over software licensing for the console caused the partnership to fall through. Sony then continued the project independently.

Launched in 1994, the first PlayStation gained 61% of global console sales and broke Nintendo's long-standing lead in the market.^[135] Sony followed up with the PlayStation 2 in 2000, which was even more successful. The console has become the most successful of all time, selling over 150 million units as of 2011^[update]. Sony released the PlayStation 3, a high-definition console, in 2006. It was the first console to use the Blu-ray format, and was considerably more expensive than the competitors Xbox 360 and Wii due to the Cell processor.^[40]

Early on, poor sales performance resulted in significant losses for the company, pushing it to sell the console at a loss.^[136] The PlayStation 3 sold generally more poorly than its competitors in the early years of its release but managed to overtake the Xbox 360 in global sales later on.^[137] It later introduced the PlayStation Move, an accessory that allows players to control video games using motion gestures.

The PlayStation 2 is the best-selling video game console of all time.

Sony extended the brand to the portable games market in 2004 with the PlayStation Portable (PSP). The console has sold reasonably, but has taken a second place to a rival handheld, the Nintendo DS. Sony developed the Universal Media Disc (UMD) optical disc medium for use on the PlayStation Portable. Early on, the format was used for movies, but it has since lost major studio support. Sony released a disc-less version of its PlayStation Portable, the PSP Go, in 2009. The company went on to release its second portable video game system, PlayStation Vita, in 2011 and 2012. Sony launched its fourth console, the PlayStation 4, on 15 November 2013, which as of 31 December 2017 has sold 73.6 million units globally.^[138]

On 18 March 2014, at GDC, president of SCE Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida announced their new virtual reality technology dubbed Project Morpheus, and later named PlayStation VR, for PlayStation 4. The headset brought VR gaming and non-gaming software to the company's console. According to a report released by Houston-based patent consulting firm LexInnova in May 2015, Sony is leading the virtual reality patent race. According to the firm's analysis of nearly 12,000 patents or patent applications, Sony has 366 virtual reality patents or patent applications.^[139] PlayStation VR was released worldwide on 13 October 2016.^[140]

On 31 March 2019, the successor to the PlayStation 4 was announced and on 12 November 2020, the PlayStation 5 was released in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. The console was launched in Indonesia on 22 January 2021. Upon completion of the fiscal quarter, Sony sold 4.5 million PlayStation 5 consoles, keeping pace with the best-selling console of all time, the PlayStation 2.^[141]

Pictures and Music

Sony Entertainment has two divisions: Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Music Group (Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Music Publishing). Sony USA previously owned and operated Sony Trans Com: a technology business that provided in-flight entertainment programming as well as video and audio playback equipment for the airline industry. Sony had purchased the business from Sundstrand Corp. in 1989 and subsequently sold it to Rockwell Collins in 2000.^[142][143]

In 2012, Sony rolled most of its consumer content services (including video, music and gaming) into the Sony Entertainment Network, the predecessor of PlayStation Network.

Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sony Pictures Plaza, next to the main studio lot of Sony Pictures in Culver City, California

Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (SPE) is the television and film production/distribution unit of Sony. With 12.5% box office market share in 2011, the company was ranked third among movie studios.^[144] Its group sales in 2010 were US$7.2 billion.^[145][146] The company has produced many notable movie franchises, including Spider-Man, The Karate Kid and Men in Black. It has also produced the popular television game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.

Sony entered the television and film production market when it acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1989 for $3.4 billion. Columbia lives on in the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of SPE which in turn owns Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures among other film production and distribution companies such as Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. SPE's television division is known as Sony Pictures Television.

The main entrance to the Sony Pictures Entertainment studio lot in Culver City

For the first several years of its existence, Sony Pictures Entertainment performed poorly, leading many to suspect the company would sell off the division.^[147] In 2006 Sony started using ARccOS Protection on some of their film DVDs, but later issued a recall.^[148]

In late 2014, Sony Pictures became the target of a hack attack from a clandestine group called Guardians of Peace, weeks before releasing the anti-North Korean comedy film The Interview.^[149]

Sony Music Group and SMEJ

Sony Music Entertainment headquarters in New York City, United States

Sony Music Entertainment (also known as SME or Sony Music) is the largest global recorded music company of the "big three" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Sony.

In one of its largest-ever acquisitions, Sony purchased CBS Record Group in 1988 for US$2 billion.^[150] In the process, Sony partnered and gained the rights to the ATV catalogue of Michael Jackson, considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the most successful entertainer of all time. The acquisition of CBS Records provided the foundation for the formation of Sony Music Entertainment, which Sony established in 1991.

In 1968, Sony and CBS Records had formed a 50:50 joint-venture CBS/Sony Records, later renamed CBS/Sony Group, in Japan. When CBS Records was acquired, a 50% stake in CBS/Sony Group owned by CBS was also transferred to Sony. In March 1988, four wholly owned subsidiaries were folded into CBS/Sony Group and the company was renamed as Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ). It operates independently of Sony Music as it is directly owned by Japanese Sony.

In 2004, Sony entered into a joint venture with Bertelsmann AG, merging Sony Music Entertainment with Bertelsmann Music Group to create Sony BMG. In 2005, Sony BMG faced a copy protection scandal, because its music CDs had installed malware on users' computers that was posing a security risk to affected customers.^[151] In 2007, the company acquired Famous Music for US$370 million, gaining the rights to the catalogues of Eminem and Akon, among others. Sony bought out Bertelsmann's share in Sony BMG and formed a new Sony Music Entertainment in 2008. Since then, the company has undergone management changes.

Sony purchased digital music recognition company Gracenote for US$260 million in 2008.^[152] Tribune Media Company acquired Gracenote from Sony in 2014 for $170 million.^[153]

Besides its record label, Sony operates other music businesses. In 1995, Sony merged its publisher with Michael Jackson's ATV Music Publishing, forming Sony/ATV Music Publishing. At the time, the publishing company was the second largest of its kind in the world. The company owns the publishing rights to over 4 million compositions, including The Beatles' Lennon-McCartney catalogue, Bob Dylan, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift.

In 2012, Sony/ATV acquired a majority stake in EMI Music Publishing, becoming the world's largest music publishing company. In 2018, Sony bought the rest of the shares in the publisher, making it a wholly owned subsidiary.^[154][155] Since 2016, Sony owns all of Sony/ATV.^[156]

Anime

Sony's entering into the Japanese animation, or anime, business happened in 1995 when its Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ) division established Aniplex as its subsidiary managing creative productions, which founded A-1 Pictures, the first anime studio of Sony, ten years later. Since then, through group-wide and international ventures,^[157] Sony has solidified its position in the industry, elevating the business to what is called the "fourth pillar of its entertainment portfolio" according to The Nikkei.^[158]

The anime business operations of Sony are scattered around the group, mainly in its Pictures and Music units, as follows: SMEJ's notable related businesses include Aniplex and its subsidiaries CloverWorks and A-1 Pictures while Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan (SPEJ) operates anime-oriented TV channels like Animax, Kids Station; Aniplex and U.S.-headquartered Sony Pictures co-own U.S.-based anime distribution company Crunchyroll, which since 2022, has become the successor company to Funimation, which it acquired in 2017 and included subsidiaries such as Wakanim (absorbing into Crunchyroll itself) and Madman Anime (to be rebranded as Crunchyroll Pty. Ltd.)^[159]

In December 2020, Funimation announced that it would buy AT&T's animation business Crunchyroll for $1.175 billion, which would help the company to compete more globally with entertainment giants such as Netflix.^[160] This acquisition was completed in August 2021.^[161]

Financial Services

Headquarters of Sony Financial Group in Tokyo, Japan

Sony Financial Group is a holding company for Sony's financial services business which includes Sony Life (in Japan and the Philippines), Sony Assurance, Sony Bank, etc. The unit proved to be the most profitable of Sony's businesses in FY 2005, earning $1.7 billion in profit.^[39] Sony Financial's low fees have aided the unit's popularity while threatening Sony's premium brand name.^[39]

Others

Electric vehicles and batteries

A company behind the commercialization of lithium-ion battery,^[162] Sony had been exploring the possibility to manufacture the batteries for electric vehicles.^{[163][164][165]} In 2014, Sony participated within NRG Energy eVgo Ready for Electric Vehicle (REV) program, for EV charging parking lots.^[166] However, the company then decided to sell its lithium-ion battery business to Murata Manufacturing in 2016.^[167]

In 2015, Sony invested $842 thousand in ZMP INC., drawing speculations that it is contemplating developing self-driving cars.^[168] In January 2020, Sony unveiled a concept electric car at the Consumer Electronics Show, named Vision-S, designed in collaboration with components manufacturer Magna International.^[169] At the occasion, Sony also stated its goal of developing technology for the automotive sector, especially concerning autonomous driving, sensors, and in-car entertainment.^[170]

In 2022, Sony Group and Honda launched a joint venture for their electric vehicle partnership, Sony Honda Mobility (SHM), which would deliver its first electric vehicles by 2026 and sell them online, starting in the United States and Japan.^[171][172] The joint venture announced their new "Afeela" brand and its first prototype model at the CES 2023.^[173]

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List of assets owned by Sony

List of assets owned by Sony

This is a list of assets owned by Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony Group Corporation.

Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records.

Sony Music

Sony Music

Sony Music Entertainment (SME), simply known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Sony Entertainment and managed by the American umbrella division of Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony. It is the recording division half of the Sony Music Group, with the other half being the publishing division, Sony Music Publishing (formerly Sony/ATV).

Sony Music Entertainment Japan

Sony Music Entertainment Japan

Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. , often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short, is a Japanese music arm for Sony. Founded in 1968 as CBS/Sony, SMEJ is directly owned by Sony Group Corporation and is operating independently from the United States-based Sony Music Entertainment due to its strength in the Japanese music industry. Its subsidiaries include the Japanese animation production enterprise, Aniplex, which was established in September 1995 as a joint-venture between Sony Music Entertainment Japan and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, but which in 2001 became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan. It was prominent in the early to mid '90s producing and licensing music for animated series such as Roujin Z from acclaimed Japanese comic artist Katsuhiro Otomo and Capcom's Street Fighter animated series.

Christchurch

Christchurch

Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / Ōtākaro flows through the centre of the city, with an urban park along its banks. The city's territorial authority population is 389,300 people, and includes a number of smaller urban areas as well as rural areas. The population of the urban area is 377,900 people. Christchurch is the second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand, after Auckland. It is the major urban area of an emerging sub-region known as Greater Christchurch. Notable smaller urban areas within this sub-region include Rangiora and Kaiapoi in Waimakariri District, north of the Waimakariri River, and Rolleston and Lincoln in Selwyn District to the south.

Electronics manufacturing services

Electronics manufacturing services

Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) is a term used for companies that design, manufacture, test, distribute, and provide return/repair services for electronic components and assemblies for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The concept is also referred to as Electronics Contract Manufacturing (ECM).

Headphones

Headphones

Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound. Headphones let a single user listen to an audio source privately, in contrast to a loudspeaker, which emits sound into the open air for anyone nearby to hear. Headphones are also known as earphones or, colloquially, cans. Circumaural and supra-aural headphones use a band over the top of the head to hold the speakers in place. Another type, known as earbuds or earpieces consist of individual units that plug into the user's ear canal. A third type are bone conduction headphones, which typically wrap around the back of the head and rest in front of the ear canal, leaving the ear canal open. In the context of telecommunication, a headset is a combination of headphone and microphone.

Discman

Discman

Discman was Sony's brand name for portable CD players. The first Discman, the Sony D-50 or D-5, was launched in 1984. The brand name changed to CD Walkman, initially for Japanese lineups launched between October 1997 and March 1998, and then entirely in 2000. Discman and CD Walkman players are no longer produced.

Memory Stick

Memory Stick

The Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, originally launched by Sony in late 1998. In addition to the original Memory Stick, this family includes the Memory Stick PRO, a revision that allows greater maximum storage capacity and faster file transfer speeds; Memory Stick Duo, a small-form-factor version of the Memory Stick ; the even smaller Memory Stick Micro (M2), and the Memory Stick PRO-HG, a high speed variant of the PRO to be used in high-definition video and still cameras.

OpenMG

OpenMG

OpenMG is a digital rights management (DRM) system developed by Sony for managing and protecting digital music data on a personal computer. It was originally designed for audio files in ATRAC3 format; the compliant software, e.g. Sony SonicStage, is usually capable of transcoding MP3 and WAV files to OpenMG/ATRAC3. The file extensions OpenMG-encrypted files use are .omg and .oma.

Active noise control

Active noise control

Active noise control (ANC), also known as noise cancellation (NC), or active noise reduction (ANR), is a method for reducing unwanted sound by the addition of a second sound specifically designed to cancel the first. The concept was first developed in the late 1930s; later developmental work that began in the 1950s eventually resulted in commercial airline headsets with the technology becoming available in the late 1980s. The technology is also used in road vehicles, mobile telephones, earbuds, and headphones.

Bravia (brand)

Bravia (brand)

Bravia is a brand of Sony Visual Products Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation, and used for its television products. Its backronym is "Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture". All Sony high-definition flat-panel LCD televisions in North America have carried the logo for BRAVIA since 2005. BRAVIA replaces the "LCD WEGA" which Sony used for their LCD TVs until Summer 2005. In 2014, In the part of Sony President and CEO Kasuo Hirai's plans to turn Sony around, BRAVIA was made into an subsidiary rather than just a brand of products.

Institutional ownership

Sony is a kabushiki gaisha registered to the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan and the New York Stock Exchange for overseas trading. As of 31 March 2020^[update], the largest shareholders of Sony are as follows:^[174]

• Citibank (as depositary bank for American depositary receipt holders) (9.4%)
• The Master Trust Bank of Japan–nominated investment trusts (main account) (8.2%)
• Japan Trustee Services Bank–nominated investment trusts
  • Main trust account (6.1%)
  • Trust account 7 (2.4%)
  • Trust account 5 (2.1%)
• JPMorgan Chase Bank 385632 (3.2%)

Finances

As of July 2020, Sony, one of the largest Japanese companies by market capitalization and operating profit, was valued at over $90 billion. At the same period, it was also recognized as the most cash-rich Japanese company, with its net cash reserves of ¥1.8 trillion.^[175]

The company was immensely profitable throughout the 1990s and early 2000s in part because of the success of its new PlayStation line. The company encountered financial difficulty in the mid- to late-2000s due to a number of factors: the global financial crisis, increased competition for PlayStation, and the devastating Japanese earthquake of 2011. The company faced three consecutive years of losses leading up to 2011.^[176] While noting the negative effects of intervening circumstances such as natural disasters and fluctuating currency exchange rates, the Financial Times criticized the company for its "lack of resilience" and "inability to gauge the economy," voicing skepticism about Sony's revitalization efforts, given a lack of tangible results.^[176]

In September 2000 Sony had a market capitalization of $100 billion; but by December 2011 it had plunged to $18 billion, reflecting falling prospects for Sony but also reflecting grossly inflated share prices of the 'dot-com bubble' years.^[177] Net worth, as measured by stockholder equity, has steadily grown from $17.9 billion in March 2002 to $35.6 billion through December 2011.^[178] Earnings yield (inverse of the price to earnings ratio) has never been more than 5% and usually much less; thus Sony has always traded in over-priced ranges with the exception of the 2009 market bottom.

On 9 December 2008, Sony announced that it would be cutting 8,000 jobs, dropping 8,000 contractors and reducing its global manufacturing sites by 10% to save $1.1 billion per year.^[179]

In April 2012, Sony announced that it would reduce its workforce by 10,000 (6% of its employee base) as part of CEO Kaz Hirai's effort to get the company back into the black. This came after a loss of 520 billion yen (roughly US$6.36 billion) for fiscal 2012, the worst since the company was founded. Accumulation loss for the past four years was 919.32 billion-yen.^[180][181] Sony planned to increase its marketing expenses by 30% in 2012.^[182] 1,000 of the jobs cut come from the company's mobile phone unit's workforce. 700 jobs will be cut in the 2012–2013 fiscal year and the remaining 300 in the following fiscal year.^[183] Sony had revenues of ¥6.493 trillion in 2012 and maintained large reserves of cash, with ¥895 billion on hand as of 2012. In May 2012, Sony's market capitalization was valued at about $15 billion.^[184]

In January 2013, Sony announced it was selling its US headquarters building for $1.1 billion to a consortium led by real estate developer The Chetrit Group.^[186]

On 28 January 2014, Moody's Investors Services dropped Sony's credit rating to Ba1—"judged to have speculative elements and a significant credit risk"—saying that the company's "profitability is likely to remain weak and volatile."^[187]

On 6 February 2014, Sony announced it would trim as many as 5,000 jobs as it attempts to sell its PC business and focus on mobile and tablets.^[188]

In 2014,^[189] Sony South Africa closed its TV, Hi-Fi and camera divisions^[190] with the purpose of reconsidering its local distribution model and, in 2017, it returned^[191][192] facilitated by Premium Brand Distributors (Pty) Ltd.

In November 2018, Sony posted its earning report for the second quarter showing it has lost about US$480 million in the mobile phone division,^[194] prompting another round of downsizing in the unit, including the closure of a manufacturing plant and halving of its workforce.^[195][196]

Environmental record

In November 2011, Sony was ranked ninth (jointly with Panasonic) in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics.^[197] This chart grades major electronics companies on their environmental work. The company scored 3.6/10, incurring a penalty point for comments it has made in opposition to energy efficiency standards in California. It also risks a further penalty point in future editions for being a member of trade associations that have commented against energy efficiency standards.^[198] Together with Philips, Sony receives the highest score for energy policy advocacy after calling on the EU to adopt an unconditional 30% reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Meanwhile, it receives full marks for the efficiency of its products.^[198] In June 2007, Sony ranked 14th on the Greenpeace guide.^[199] Sony fell from its earlier 11th-place ranking due to Greenpeace's claims that Sony had double standards in their waste policies.^[200]

As of May 2018^[update] Greenpeace's 2017 Guide to Greener Electronics rated Sony approximately in the middle among electronics manufacturers with a grade of D+.^[201]

Since 1976, Sony has had an Environmental Conference.^[202] Sony's policies address their effects on global warming, the environment, and resources. They are taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that they put out as well as regulating the products they get from their suppliers in a process that they call "green procurement".^[203] Sony has said that they have signed on to have about 75 percent of their Sony Building running on geothermal power. The "Sony Take Back Recycling Program" allow consumers to recycle the electronics products that they buy from Sony by taking them to eCycle (Recycling) drop-off points around the U.S. The company has also developed a biobattery that runs on sugars and carbohydrates that works similarly to the way living creatures work. This is the most powerful small biobattery to date.^[204]

In 2000, Sony faced criticism for a document entitled "NGO Strategy" that was leaked to the press. The document involved the company's surveillance of environmental activists in an attempt to plan how to counter their movements. It specifically mentioned environmental groups that were trying to pass laws that held electronics-producing companies responsible for the cleanup of the toxic chemicals contained in their merchandise.^[205]

Cartel

In 2007 an investigation launched in 2002 by the European Commission culminated in Sony, Fuji and Maxell receiving a total of 110 million US dollar fine for fixing professional videotape prices between the years 1999 and 2002 through regular meetings and other illegal contracts; at the time the three corporations shared a combined 85% control of the market. Sony's part of the fine was raised by a third for trying to obstruct the investigation by refusing to answer inquiries made by the EU officials and shredding of evidence during the multiple law-enforcement raids.^[206][207] During the year 2001 prior to the investigation Sony sold professional videotapes for a total of 115 million euros inside the EU.

Community engagement

• EYE SEE project
  Sony Corporation is actively involved in the EYE SEE project conducted by UNICEF. EYE SEE digital photography workshops have been run for children in Argentina, Tunisia, Mali, South Africa, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Rwanda, Liberia and Pakistan.^[208][209]
• South Africa Mobile Library Project
  Sony assists The South Africa Primary Education Support Initiative (SAPESI) through financial donations and children book donations to the South Africa Mobile Library Project.^[210]
• The Sony Canada Charitable Foundation
  The Sony Canada Charitable Foundation (SCCF) is a non-profit organization which supports three key charities; the Make-A-Wish Canada, the United Way of Canada and the EarthDay and ECOKIDS program.
• Sony Foundation and You Can
  After the 2011 Queensland floods and Victorian bushfires, Sony Music released benefit albums with money raised going to the Sony Foundation.^[211] You Can is the youth cancer program of Sony Foundation.^[212]
• Open Planet Ideas Crowdsourcing Project
  Sony launched its Open Planet Ideas Crowdsourcing Project, in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund and the design group, IDEO.^[213]
• Street Football Stadium Project
  On the occasion of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Sony partnered with streetfootballworld and launched the Street Football Stadium Project to support football-based educational programmes in local communities across Latin America and Brazil.^[214] More than 25 Street Stadiums were developed since the project's inception.^[215]
• The Sony Global Relief Fund for COVID-19
  During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sony launched a relief fund in line with other media and tech companies to aid individuals working in the medical, education, and entertainment sectors.^[216]

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Kabushiki gaisha

Kabushiki gaisha

A kabushiki gaisha or kabushiki kaisha, commonly abbreviated K.K. or KK, is a type of company defined under the Companies Act of Japan. The term is often translated as "stock company", "joint-stock company" or "stock corporation". The term kabushiki gaisha in Japan refers to any joint-stock company regardless of country of origin or incorporation; however, outside Japan the term refers specifically to joint-stock companies incorporated in Japan.

Citibank

Citibank

Citibank, N. A. is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City Bank of New York. The bank has 2,649 branches in 19 countries, including 723 branches in the United States and 1,494 branches in Mexico operated by its subsidiary Banamex. The U.S. branches are concentrated in six metropolitan areas: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Miami.

American depositary receipt

American depositary receipt

An American depositary receipt is a negotiable security that represents securities of a foreign company and allows that company's shares to trade in the U.S. financial markets.

Investment trust

Investment trust

An investment trust is a form of investment fund found mostly in the United Kingdom and Japan. Investment trusts are constituted as public limited companies and are therefore closed ended since the fund managers cannot redeem or create shares.

Japan Trustee Services Bank

Japan Trustee Services Bank

Japan Trustee Services Bank, Ltd. , or JTSB, is a trust bank in Japan.

Chase Bank

Chase Bank

JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase Bank or often as Chase, is an American national bank headquartered in New York City, that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the U.S. multinational banking and financial services holding company, JPMorgan Chase. The bank was known as Chase Manhattan Bank until it merged with J.P. Morgan & Co. in 2000. Chase Manhattan Bank was formed by the merger of the Chase National Bank and the Manhattan Company in 1955. The bank merged with Bank One Corporation in 2004 and in 2008 acquired the deposits and most assets of Washington Mutual.

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami

The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami occurred at 14:46 JST on 11 March. The magnitude 9.0–9.1 (Mw) undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, 72 km (45 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region, and lasted approximately six minutes, causing a tsunami. It is sometimes known in Japan as the "Great East Japan Earthquake" , among other names. The disaster is often referred to as simply 3.11.

Financial Times

Financial Times

The Financial Times (FT) is a British daily business newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikkei, with core editorial offices across Britain, the United States and continental Europe. In July 2015, Pearson sold the publication to Nikkei for £844 million after owning it since 1957. In 2019, it reported one million paying subscriptions, three-quarters of which were digital subscriptions. The newspaper has a prominent focus on financial journalism and economic analysis over generalist reporting, drawing both criticism and acclaim. The daily sponsors an annual book award and publishes a "Person of the Year" feature.

Dot-com bubble

Dot-com bubble

The dot-com bubble was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s. The period coincided with massive growth in Internet adoption, a proliferation of available venture capital, and the rapid growth of valuations in new dot-com startups.

Kaz Hirai

Kaz Hirai

Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai is a Japanese businessman. He is best known as the former chairman of Sony Corporation, serving from April 2018 to June 2019, as well as president and CEO from April 2012 to April 2018. He also served as a board member of Sony Computer Entertainment and chairman and co-CEO of Sony Entertainment. He was noted by Entertainment Weekly as one of the most powerful executives in the entertainment industry. He led the Sony Computer Entertainment division between 2007 and 2012, and then became president and CEO of Sony in April 2012. Through his tenure as CEO, Sony experienced a resurgence during the 2010s. In 2018, Hirai stepped down as president and CEO, becoming chairman of Sony Corporation. He fully retired from Sony in June 2019, otherwise remaining as a senior adviser to the company.

Moody's Investors Service

Moody's Investors Service

Moody's Investors Service, often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its historical name. Moody's Investors Service provides international financial research on bonds issued by commercial and government entities. Moody's, along with Standard & Poor's and Fitch Group, is considered one of the Big Three credit rating agencies. It is also included in the Fortune 500 list of 2021.

Fiscal year

Fiscal year

A fiscal year is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many jurisdictions require company financial reports to be prepared and published on an annual basis but generally not the reporting period to align with the calendar year. Taxation laws generally require accounting records to be maintained and taxes calculated on an annual basis, which usually corresponds to the fiscal year used for government purposes. The calculation of tax on an annual basis is especially relevant for direct taxes, such as income tax. Many annual government fees—such as council tax and license fees, are also levied on a fiscal year basis, but others are charged on an anniversary basis.