Timeline and History of the Walkman

Todd R. Brain December 23, 2024

When and how was the Walkman invented? How did it get its name? What kind of promotional strategies were adopted to market the Walkman? When did the device start getting obsolete? Find answers to all these and more. TAGGED UNDER: Inventions Consumer Electronics

Walkman, the portable stereo cassette player brand introduced by Sony in 1979, became a popular electronic gadget worldwide. According to Sony, who coined the term ‘Walkman’ for the device, the plural of ‘Walkman’ is ‘Walkman Personal Stereos’ and not ‘Walkmans’ or ‘Walkmen’. Sony’s intention behind this was to preserve their ‘Walkman’ trademark.

Time before the Walkman
In 1906, an American physicist, Lee Dee Forest, invented the vacuum tube triode. This device could amplify or switch electrical signals by controlling the flow of electrons in areas of low pressure. These vacuum tubes played special roles in developing electronic technology and were responsible for the success of television, radar, radio broadcasting, etc. However, its major drawback was that the metal that emitted electrons burned out. Further, the tubes were too bulky and consumed a lot of power.

One thousand nine hundred forty-seven three American physicists at the Bell Telephone Laboratories invented the transistor. The transistor was a wonderful replacement for the vacuum triode, as it was smaller and generated less heat. Later, in the late 1950s, portable radios were introduced. Besides portable radios, cassette recorders were also available at that time. However, they were expensive and were not designed for the commoner, but instead were designed for journalists and people in similar professions. Home stereos and music players in cars were popular. However, no small personal players were available. In 1978, Sony introduced the TC-D5, a tape recorder credited to superb sound quality and being very user-friendly. However, this device was expensive and bulky, making it less portable.

Invention of the Walkman
Masaru Ibuka, the then Honorary Chairman of Sony, was a regular user of the TC-D5 and used it to listen to music during his airplane trips. He was bothered by the bulky size of the player and asked Ohga (then Executive Deputy President) to come up with a simple and portable stereo that he could carry with him on his trips. Ohga immediately contacted the general manager of the Tape Recorder Business Division, Kozo Ohsone, and forwarded Ibaka’s desire for a smaller stereo. Ohlone and his team discarded the recording function from TC-D5 and came up with a stereo sound device. They also attached large headphones and were pleased with the invention.

Later, Ohlone developed a smaller version of this invention, which worked on batteries, and presented it to Ibaka. Ibaka was pleased with this small stereo cassette player despite having large headphones. He showed the player to Morita (then Chairman of Sony) and told him how a portable cassette recorder would be a hit with the people. Morita agreed with Ibaka and was impressed that the device could easily be carried around.

Morita asked Phone and his team to develop the same device they also made for Ibaka for the market. However, the price had to be below ¥ 40,000 without se on the sound quality. The team worked on cutting the production cost and reducing the headphone size. Eventually, they developed 50-gram headphones (instead of the 400-gram one earlier) within the required price range. On June 21, 1979, the Walkman was released into the market for the general public.

How did the Walkman get its name?
Before the product was launched, there was a lot of debate on which name would be appropriate for the cassette player. The Phone came up with the name Walkman. However, the management didn’t seem to like it. They feared this name would not catch on in the US and the European market (since it sounded like a Japanese translation). Several other names were suggested for this product, such as ‘Walk’, ‘Roundabout’, ‘Stowaway’ and ‘Freestyle’. However, no name adhered to the player like the Walkman, so management was given to go with it. And the irony lies that in 1986, the term Walkman entered the Oxford dictionary and is a word to describe a cassette player!

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Entry Barriers and Promotional Strategies
Before the Walkman could enter the market, its image was tarnished by the press, who stated that a cassette player without a recorder was useless and would be a failure. However, Sony turned a deaf ear to all the negative comments and focused on releasing their product. Sony’s management did not want to introduce their product conventionally. They avoided promoting their product via the traditional introduction to the press and instead went the extra mile and arranged a bus tour for the journalists. The journalists were ushered into the bus and given a Walkman to listen to.

The bus took them to a garden, where they were asked to put on headphones and listen to the product’s explanation. As the journalists listened to the explanation, various staff members and young people hired by Sony demonstrated the product, such as listening to the Walkman while walking, cycling, skating, etc. This innovative method allowed the journalists tto experience the extraordinary audio quality of the Walkman. I think the journalists were taken aback by this innovative product introduction method. Nevertheless, they played along. They liked this new product that allowed people to listen to music of their choice anytime and anywhere.

Even though Sony had impressed the journalists, they could only sell 3000 units by the end of July. Sony didn’t give up; instead, it pumped up promotional activities and got the staff to travel on trains to advertise the Walkman. Moreover, Sony targeted youngsters by hiring people to walk around Ginza in Tokyo with Walkman Personal Stereos. These young people were instructed to allow passersby to try it out for free and personally experience the device’s audio quality.

Sony manadevice’s audio quality inspired pop stars to pose with the Walkman and publish their pictures in magazines, thereby adding to the product’s popularity. Management resorted to publicity through word-of-mouth and demonstrations rather than television advertisements. Their out-of-the-box thinking spearheaded the product’s success, and by the end of August, 30,000 units were sold out. Thus, large orders for the portable music cassette player began.

Sony and the Stereobelt Conflict
Sony’s journey wasn’t all smooth sailing, and in 1980, Sony was confronted by a lawsuit filed by a German-Brazilian, Andreas Pavel. Andreas claimed that he had invented a portable cassette player called ‘Stereobelt’ in 1972 and had even approached renowned electronic manufacturers (Yamaha and Phillips) with his invention. However, the manufacturers rejected the invention because the public would not prefer to listen to music outdoors via headphones. Disappointed, Andreas filed a patent for his Stereobelt, first in Italy (1977), then in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan (1978).

The legal talks between Sony and Andreas began in 1980, and finally, six years later, Sony agreed to pay royalties for every Walkman sold in Germany. However, they did not acknowledge Andreas as the inventor of the product. Andreas was not satisfied and initiated another series of lawsuits in 1989. In 2003, Andreas threatened to file infringement lawsuits in all the countries where he had filed for patents. Sony finally agreed to resort to an out-of-court settlement with Andreas and signed a confidential contract in 2004. The details of the settlement are not known. However, some sources say that $10,000,000 was paid to Andreas, along with ongoing royalties for specific Walkman models. The settlement granted Andreas recognition as the portable stereo cassette player’s inventor but also included a clause that Andreas could no longer file lawsuits against Sony.

Competitors
Sony faced stiff competition from the early ’80s itself. US companies like Sears, JCPenney, and Radio Shack came up with their stereos. Further, another audio company from New York came up with a personal stereo that even featured television audio reception. Sony started feeling the pressure and worked on reducing the headphones’ size and improving the sound quality. They successfully developed the WM-2 model (small metal-cased version), which became Sony’s most popular and successful Walkman, selling over 2.5 million units.

By 1983, the Walkman had become a craze; everyone was buying one. The varieties of the Walkman mushroomed rapidly, with players ranging from $25 (disposable) to $200 (professional quality). Later, Sony and Panasonic developed a Walkman with two cassette drives, enabling listeners to listen to one cassette immediately after the first one ended. By 1985, Walkman models were improvised and featured graphic equalizers, which improved the sound quality to a great extent. Auto reverse features were added to make the device more user-friendly. Panasonic developed the thinnest version of the Walkman called the ‘Radio Card’.

Decline of the Walkman
1986 marked the beginning of the farewell of the popular Walkman. Sony developed the upgraded music player version, Discman, which features a compact disc. This new digital medium and its incredible sound quality lured the public. Sony, the market leader in the portable stereo player segment, retained the name Walkman for their compact disc version and scrapped Discman.

However, Walkman did not lose popularity instantly because the music was available on cassettes only. Consumer CD recorders were also not available at that time. In 1989, 10 years after Sony launched its first Walkman model, the number of Walkman Personal Stereos manufactured by the company was beyond 50 million. This figure reached 100 million in 1992 and 150 million in 1995.

The Walkman paved the way for portable stereos in the electronics market and was a product dear to all. Technological development has made cassette players obsolete. However, despite the decline, some deluxe models are still sold in countries like South Korea and Japan.