Sony Corporation

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Type: Public
On the web: http://www.sony.net
Employees: 168,200
Employee growth: 0.2%

Many eyes and hands are on Sony -- or, most likely, on its high-profit consumer electronics products and gaming systems. The company, officially named Sony Kabushiki Kaisha, makes a host of products, including digital and video cameras, Walkman stereos, TVs, and semiconductors, through its more than 1,200 subsidiaries. A top media conglomerate worldwide, Sony boasts entertainment assets such as music (Sony Music Entertainment), motion pictures (Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Digital Production), DVDs (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), and TV programs (Sony Pictures Television). Under its first non-Japanese leader, Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's realigning its business and shedding some longtime traditions.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending March, 2012:
Sales: $80,548.3M
One year growth: (7.0%)
Net income: ($5,664.9)M

Officers:
Chairman, President, and CEO; Chairman and CEO, Sony Corporation of America: Sir Howard Stringer
EVP and CFO: Masaru Kato
EVP Intellectual Property and Disc Manufacturing: Keiji Kimura

Competitors:
Philips Electronics
Panasonic Corp
SANYO

Incorporated: 1946 as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
NAIC: 334111 Electronic Computer Manufacturing; 334119 Other
SIC: 3571 Electronic Computers; 3577 Computer Peripheral Equipment Nec; 3661 Telephone & Telegraph Apparatus; 3663 Radio & T.V. Communications Equipment; 3669 Communications Equipment Nec; 3651 Household Audio & Video Equipment; 3674 Semiconductors & Related Devices; 7812 Motion Picture & Video Production; 7822 Motion Picture & Tape Distribution; 7829 Motion Picture Distribution Services; 7832 Motion Picture Theaters Except Drive-In

Sony Corporation is one of the best-known names in consumer electronics and ranks second worldwide in electronics behind Matsushita Electric Corporation. Since it was established shortly after World War II, Sony has introduced a stream of revolutionary products, including the transistor radio, the Trinitron television, the Betamax VCR, the CD player, the Walkman portable cassette player, and the PlayStation game console. The company's electronics segment--which includes audio and video products, televisions, personal computers, monitors, computer peripherals, telecommunications devices, and electronic components (such as semiconductors)--generates about two-thirds of the overall revenues. Sales of game consoles and software account for about 9 percent of revenues. Another 10 percent of revenues are derived from Sony's music businesses, which include the Columbia and Epic record labels. About 7 percent of revenues come from Sony's motion picture and television business, which includes the Columbia TriStar studio. Sony's other major business segment is insurance, from which about 6 percent of revenues originate.

Sony was founded by a former naval lieutenant named Akio Morita and a defense contractor named Masaru Ibuka. Morita, a weapons researcher, first met Ibuka during World War II while developing a heat-seeking missile-guidance system and a night-vision gun scope. After the war Ibuka worked as a radio repairman for a bomb-damaged Tokyo department store. Morita found him again when he read in a newspaper that Ibuka had invented a shortwave converter. In May 1946 the two men established a partnership with $500 in borrowed capital, and registered their company as the Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, or TTK). Morita and Ibuka moved their company to a crude facility on a hill in southern Tokyo where they developed their first consumer product: a rice cooker, which failed commercially. In its first year TTK registered a profit of $300 on sales of less than $7,000.

But as the Japanese economy grew stronger, demand for consumer goods increased. Morita and Ibuka abandoned the home-appliance market and, with injections of capital from Morita's father, concentrated on developing new electronic goods. Ibuka developed a tape recorder fashioned after an American model he had seen at the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. Demand for the machine, which was introduced in 1950 and was the first Japanese tape recorder, remained low until Ibuka accidentally discovered a U.S. military booklet titled Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Uses of the Tape Recorder. Translated into Japanese, the booklet became an effective marketing tool. Once acquainted with its many uses, customers such as the Academy of Art in Tokyo purchased so many tape recorders that TTK was soon forced to move to a larger building in Shinagawa.

Norio Ohga, an opera student at the academy, wrote several letters to TTK criticizing the sound quality of its recorder. Impressed by the detail and constructive tone of the criticisms, Morita invited Ohga to participate in the development of a new recorder as a consultant. Ohga accepted, and subsequent models were vastly improved.

Constantly searching for new technological advances, Masaru Ibuka heard of a tiny new capacitor called a transistor in 1952. The transistor, developed by Bell Laboratories, could be used in place of larger, less-durable vacuum tubes. Western Electric purchased the technology in order to manufacture transistorized hearing aids. Ibuka acquired a patent license from Western Electric for $25,000 with the intention of developing a small tubeless radio.

TTK began mass production of transistor radios in 1955, only a few months after they were introduced by a small American firm called Regency Electronics. The TTK radio was named Sony, from sonus, Latin for 'sound.' The Sony radio had tremendous sales potential, not only in the limited Japanese market but also in the United States, where the economy was much stronger.

Traditionally, international sales by Japanese companies were conducted through trading houses such as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo. Although these trading companies were well represented in the United States, Morita chose not to do business with them because they were unfamiliar with his company's products and did not share his business philosophy. Morita traveled to New York, where he met with representatives from several large retail firms. Morita refused an order from Bulova for 100,000 radios when that company required that each carry the Bulova name. Morita pledged that his company would not manufacture products for other companies and eventually secured a number of more modest orders that assured his company's growth at a measured pace. Another highlight of 1955 was the first listing of the company's stock on the over-the-counter market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The rising popularity of the Sony name led Morita and Ibuka to change the name of their company to Sony Kabushiki Kaisha (Corporation) in January 1958. The following year Sony announced that it had developed a transistorized television, which was introduced in 1960. That same year, after a business dispute with Delmonico International, the company Morita had appointed to handle international sales, Sony established a trade office in New York City and another in Switzerland called Sony Overseas.

A subsidiary called Sony Chemicals was created in 1962 to produce adhesives and plastics to reduce the company's dependence on outside suppliers. In 1965 a joint venture with Tektronix was established to produce oscilloscopes in Japan.

During the early 1960s Sony engineers continued to introduce new, miniaturized products based on the transistor, including an AM/FM radio and a videotape recorder. By 1968 Sony engineers had developed new color-television technology. Using one electron gun, for more accurate beam alignment, and one lens, for better focus, the Sony Trinitron produced a clearer image than conventional three-gun, three-lens sets. In what has been described as its biggest gamble, Sony, confident that technology alone would create new markets, invested a large amount of capital in the Trinitron.

Also in 1968, Sony Overseas established a trading office in England, and entered into a joint venture with CBS Inc. to produce phonograph records. The venture was under the direction of Norio Ohga, the art student who had complained about Sony's early tape recorder, whom Morita had persuaded in 1959 to give up opera and join Sony. The company, called CBS/Sony, later became the largest record manufacturer in Japan. In 1970 Sony Overseas established a subsidiary in West Germany to handle sales in that country.

After a decade of experience in videotape technology, Sony introduced the U-matic three-quarter-inch videocassette recorder (VCR) in 1971. Intended for institutions such as television stations, the U-matic received an Emmy Award for engineering excellence from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In 1973, the year Sony Overseas created a French subsidiary, the academy honored the Trinitron series with another Emmy.

Sony developed its first VCR for the consumer market, the Betamax, in 1975. The following year the Walt Disney Company and Universal Pictures filed a lawsuit against Sony, complaining that the new machine would enable widespread copyright infringement of television programs. A judgment in favor of Sony in 1979 was reversed two years later. Litigation continued, but by the time the matter reached the U.S. Supreme Court the plaintiffs' original case had been severely undermined by the proliferation of VCRs, making any legal restriction on copying television programs for private use nearly impossible to enforce.

During the mid-1970s, competitors such as U.S.-based RCA and Zenith and Japanese-based Toshiba and Victor Company of Japan (JVC) effectively adopted and improved upon technologies developed by Sony. For the first time, Sony began to lose significant market share, often in lines that it had pioneered. Strong competition, however, was only one factor that caused Sony's sales growth to fall (after growing 166 percent between 1970 and 1974, it grew only 35 percent between 1974 and 1978).

Like many Sony officials, Akio Morita lacked formal management training. Instead, he relied on his personal persuasive skills and his unusual ability to anticipate or create markets for new products. In typical fashion, Sony introduced the Betamax VCR well before its competitors, in effect creating a market in which it would enjoy a short-term monopoly. At this stage, however, Morita failed to establish the Betamax format as the industry standard by inviting the participation of other companies.

Matsushita Electric (which owned half of JVC) developed a separate VCR format called VHS (video home system), which permitted as many as three additional hours of playing time on a tape, but which was incompatible with Sony's Betamax. When the VHS was introduced in 1977, Morita was reported to have felt betrayed that Sony's competitors did not adopt the Betamax format. He appealed to 81-year-old Konosuke Matsushita, in many ways a patriarch of Japanese industry, to discontinue the VHS format in favor of Betamax. When Matsushita refused, many believed it was because he felt insulted by Morita's failure to offer earlier collaboration.

Matsushita launched a vigorous marketing campaign to convince customers and other manufacturers not only that VHS was superior, but that Betamax would soon be obsolete. The marketing war between Matsushita and Sony was neither constructive nor profitable; both companies were forced to lower prices so much that profits were greatly depressed. Although Betamax was generally considered a technically superior product, the VHS format grew in popularity and gradually displaced Betamax as a standard format. Despite its falling market share (from 13 percent in 1982 to 5 percent in 1987), Sony refused to introduce a VHS line until the late 1980s.

In 1979 Morita personally oversaw the development of a compact cassette tape player called the Walkman. Inspired by Norio Ohga's desire to listen to music while walking, Morita ordered the development of a small, high-fidelity tape player, to be paired with small, lightweight headphones that were already under development. The entire program took only five months from start to finish, and the product's success is now legendary--Walkman even became the generic term for similar devices produced by Sony's competitors.

During the 1970s, Masaru Ibuka, 12 years Morita's senior, gradually relinquished many of his duties to younger managers such as Norio Ohga, who was named president of Sony in 1982. Ohga became president shortly after a corporate reorganization that split Sony into five operating groups (marketing and sales, manufacturing, service, engineering, and diversified operations). While not formally trained in business, Ohga nonetheless understood that Sony was too dependent on an unstable consumer electronics market. In one of his first acts, he inaugurated the 50-50 program to increase sales in institutional markets from 15 to 50 percent by 1990.

During this time, Sony's research and development budget consumed approximately 9 percent of sales (Matsushita budgeted only 4 percent). Another groundbreaking result of Sony's commitment to research and development was a machine that used a laser to reproduce music recorded digitally on a small plastic disk. The compact disk (or CD) player, introduced by Sony in 1982, eliminated much of the noise common to conventional, analog phonograph records. Sony developed the CD in association with the Dutch electronics firm Philips, partly in an effort to ensure broad format standardization. Philips, which had developed the most advanced laser technology, was an ideal partner for Sony, which led in the pulse-code technology that made digital sound reproduction possible. Soon the CD format was adopted by competing manufacturers; by the mid-1990s it had virtually replaced phonograph systems as the recording medium of choice.

Early in the 1980s, Morita began ceding some of his duties to Sony's president, Norio Ohga, the young opera student hired 30 years earlier to improve Sony's tape recorders. Under Ohga, Sony entered into a new acquisitions phase with the intent of protecting itself from the costly mistake it had made with Betamax. One example of the changes Ohga brought about was Sony's video camera, introduced in 1985. Lighter, less expensive, and more portable than VHS cameras, the camera used 8mm videotape, and was incompatible with both Betamax and VHS machines. The key difference between this and earlier Sony products was that Sony developed the new 8mm video format in conjunction with over 100 competitors. While the camera may have been incompatible with the older Betamax and VHS technologies, Sony ensured that it would be compatible with the next generation of video cameras. Within three years of its introduction, the camera captured over 50 percent of the European, 30 percent of the Japanese, and 20 percent of the North American markets.

In May 1984 Sony purchased Apple Computer's hard-disk-technology operations. As a result of this acquisition, Sony was able to control about 20 percent of the Japanese market for workstations, personal computers used in business offices, thus helping to increase the proportion of its sales derived from institutional customers. Ohga also broke a decades-old tradition in 1984 when he established a division to manufacture and market electronics components for other companies. By 1988, fueled by strong sales of semiconductors (once manufactured only for Sony products), the components division had grown to represent about 11 percent of Sony's total sales.

Sony also sought to gain control of the software end of the electronics/entertainment industry. On November 29, 1985 the Sony Corporation of America, which operated several assembly plants in the United States, purchased the Digital Audio Disk Corporation from its affiliate CBS/Sony. Two years later, Sony purchased CBS Records for $2 billion. CBS Records, whose labels included Epic and Columbia, was during this time the largest producer of records and tapes in the world.

Sony had learned through its Betamax experience that a superior product alone would not ensure market dominance; had Sony been able to flood the market with exclusively Beta-formatted movies, the VCR battle might have turned out differently. Looking toward the future development of audio equipment, including digital audio tape (DAT), Sony bought the record manufacturer with an eye toward guaranteeing that the products it manufactured to play music would remain compatible with the medium used to record music. The acquisition marked less of a diversification for Sony than an evolution toward dominance in a specific market.

Sony sought further diversification in U.S. entertainment companies. In 1988, the company considered an acquisition of MGM/UA Communications Company, but decided the price was too high. Then in 1989 Sony made headlines around the world when it bought Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. from Coca-Cola for $3.4 billion. Columbia provided Sony with an extensive film library and a strong U.S. distribution system. It also carried $1 billion in debt, which almost tripled Sony's short-term debt to around ¥8 billion. Industry analysts applauded the move; when a recession hit the film industry shortly after Sony's purchase, however, some began to question Sony's ability to deliver its traditionally strong profits.

Sony did deliver, however, posting record earnings in 1990 of ¥58.2 billion ($384 million), a 38.5 percent increase over 1989. In 1992, Columbia Pictures and its subsidiary TriStar jointly captured 20 percent of the U.S. market share, far above the shares held by competing studios. By this time the entertainment operation had been renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.

The complexities of operating a truly multinational corporation, however, began taking their toll on Sony. Most of the world's largest economies (Europe, Japan, and the United States) were experiencing a slowdown in the early 1990s. This factor created what Sony called 'an unprecedentedly challenging operating environment.' Although sales in most of Sony's businesses increased in 1992, operating income dropped 44 percent to ¥166 billion ($1.2 billion). Net income increased slightly to ¥120 billion.

The ongoing appreciation of the yen against most major currencies had an even more adverse effect on Sony's bottom line in 1993: net income fell a dramatic 70 percent to ¥36 billion ($313 million) on sales of ¥3.99 trillion ($34.4 billion). Had the yen's value held steady at 1992 figures, Sony's net income would have totaled about ¥190 billion ($1.3 billion).

During that year, Ohga assumed the duties of chief executive in addition to his role as president. He and Morita responded to Sony's tough economic situation by bolstering marketing, reducing inventory levels, streamlining operations, and keeping a watchful control of capital investments. The company also embarked on an extensive reorganization effort with the goal of decentralizing operations and reducing unnecessary management. Despite these measures, Sony was unable to stem the slide. Net income plummeted another 50 percent in 1994 to ¥15 billion, on sales of ¥3.73 trillion.

By this time Morita had relinquished virtually all his duties in the company, having suffered a stroke in late 1993. In Sony's 1994 annual report, his picture and signature were conspicuously absent from the letter to shareholders, implicitly announcing Ohga's new leadership position. Under Morita's leadership, Sony's rise to preeminence in the world consumer electronics market was almost entirely self-achieved; Sony outperformed not only its Japanese rivals, among them associates of the former zaibatsu (conglomerate) companies, but also larger American firms, which by 1995 had all but abandoned the consumer electronics market.

In the late 1980s Morita told Business Week that he regarded Sony Corporation as a 'venture business' for the Morita family, which had produced several generations of mayors and whose primary business remained the 300-year-old Morita & Company. Under the direction of Akio Morita's younger brother Kuzuaki, Morita & Company produced sake, soy sauce, and Ninohimatsu brand rice wine in Nagoya. The company, whose initial $500 investment in TTK was worth $430 million in 1995, owned a 9.4 percent share of Sony.

In April 1995, Ohga ascended to the chairmanship of Sony, and Morita was made an honorary chairman. The company's new president was Nobuyuki Idei, a 34-year veteran of the company, who had founded Sony's French subsidiary in 1970 and had since played a role in many of the company's major accomplishments, including audio CD technology, computer workstations, and the 8mm video camcorder.

Sony's success had been a direct result of the wisdom of its founders, who had the talent to anticipate the demands of consumers and to develop products to meet those demands; Idei's presidency, some suggested, signaled a new era for the company.

Immediate among Idei's concerns were helping Sony become an integral player in the information highway industry. He also hoped to help the company establish an industry standard for DVDs, or digital videodisks, CD-like disks capable of holding full-length films for play on television screens via players. Once again, Sony had teamed up with Philips to develop a DVD format, but the partners quickly discovered they were facing a rival format developed by Toshiba and Time Warner. This rival format quickly gained the support of a number of the world's consumer electronics powerhouses. Rather than face a replay of the bloody battle between the Betamax and VHS formats, Sony and Philips in late 1995 agreed to support the DVD format developed by Toshiba and Time Warner. Sony subsequently introduced its first DVD player in March 1997.

Meanwhile, Sony unexpectedly entered the video game market in the mid-1990s, making an immediate splash. The development of the Sony PlayStation had actually begun in the late 1980s as a joint project with game giant Nintendo Co., Ltd. Nintendo had agreed to help develop a new game console that would combine the graphic capabilities of a computer workstation with Sony's CD-ROM drive, but then pulled out of the project in 1992. Sony decided to develop the new machine solo, introducing the 32-bit PlayStation to the Japanese market in 1994 and the U.S. market one year later. It was an immediate and huge success, in part because of the hundreds of software titles that were quickly available for the console thanks to Sony's ability to entice top Japanese and U.S. developers to create games for the PlayStation. By 1998, the PlayStation had grabbed about 40 percent of the worldwide game market, and Sony's game unit, Sony Computer Entertainment, accounted for 10 percent of the company's worldwide revenue and a whopping 22.5 percent of its operating income.

Unfortunately, the mid-1990s were also marked by continued problems at Sony Pictures Entertainment. Top management at the motion picture arm spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a string of flops, such as Last Action Hero and Geronimo, in addition to spending lavishly on hiring, studio renovations, and other expenses. Sony ended up taking a $3.2 billion write-off--one of the largest ever by a Japanese company--related to the entertainment unit during the fiscal year ending in March 1995; consequently, the company posted a net loss for the year of $2.8 billion (on sales of $44.76 billion). A major management shakeup occurred as well.

As Sony attempted to turn around its motion picture unit, in electronics the company surprised many observers by entering the crowded and low-margin personal computer business in 1997. That year, through a partnership with Intel, Sony began selling its VAIO line of PCs. Including both desktop and notebook models, the line received plaudits for its quality but got off to a slow start in the United States thanks to its above-average price tags. Sony designed the VAIO computers specifically for the home market, and they sported unique features that made them particularly well-suited to consumers who owned other Sony products. For example, software and ports were included to allow owners of Sony camcorders to transfer their home videos to the VAIO PC and to edit and manipulate the videos in a variety of ways. Sony also continued to stay on the cutting edge in the venerable television field, introducing its first flat-screen TV in 1996 and its first digital, high-definition model two years later. Also in 1998 came the launch of AIBO, a robot dog, which was touted as having the capability of expressing emotions and learning.

During 1999, a year that saw the passing of company cofounder Morita (the other founder, Ibuka, died in 1997), Idei launched a sweeping reorganization to position the company for the future--in Sony's vision, 'the network era of the 21st century.' In March 1999 Sony announced that it planned to cut its workforce by 10 percent and its manufacturing capacity by one-third before 2003. The cutbacks were slated for areas where growth had been slowing: analog televisions, VCRs, and Walkmans. The company planned to increase the amount of resources committed to such hot areas as digital products and the PlayStation, as well as placing increased emphasis on developing software, hardware, and services for the new networks that were beginning to emerge at the end of the 20th century--home networks, broadband networks, wireless networks. For Idei, the key for Sony was a historic shift in focus: hardware had traditionally driven product development, but Idei instead wanted software development and services to drive hardware design.

Perhaps the first example of such an approach came with the 2000 introduction of the Sony PlayStation 2. Although it was a technical marvel featuring high-end 3-D graphics and more processing power than most desktop PCs, the 128-bit PlayStation 2 was much more than a souped-up version of the original. It was of course designed for game software but it was not just a game console, having been conceived as a home entertainment center. Its DVD drive not only played game software but also audio CDs and DVD movies. It had the capability of connecting to the Internet and as such could be used as a broadband device controlling an Internet-connected home network. Despite manufacturing difficulties that limited production during the first year, the PlayStation 2 had a stellar debut, with about nine million units sold in the first 12 months. The high costs associated with developing and manufacturing the machines, however, depressed profits at Sony for the 2001 fiscal year. Also in the wake of its debut came rival Sega's exit from the game console business in favor of concentrating on developing game titles for other companies' machines, including the PlayStation 2. Sony continued to face competition in the game field from Nintendo, which planned to release a new machine in the fall of 2001, and faced the prospect of a new competitor, Microsoft Corporation, which was also planning a fall 2001 release of its XBox machine.

In June 2000 Idei was named chairman and CEO of Sony, while Kunitake Ando, who had headed the VAIO unit, was named president and COO. Rounding out the new management team was Teruhisa Tokunaka, a former head of the PlayStation unit, who was named deputy president and CFO. The new team faced a myriad of challenges in the rapidly changing high-tech world of the early 21st century. One example was in Sony's music business, which was being rocked by the industry-wide threat of the rampant and unauthorized downloading of digital music files over the Internet. Sony joined other music giants in suing Napster, the most obvious threat to their hegemony. The company also entered into a joint venture with Vivendi Universal S.A. to develop an online subscription service that would allow music downloads through what was called a 'virtual jukebox.' Such a service was part of a new push by Sony into broadband delivery of the audio and video material owned by its content arms. With its aggressive moves in the areas of games, networking, and delivery of digital content, Sony was almost certain to remain a frontrunner in the ever broadening field of consumer electronics and related platforms and services.

Principal Subsidiaries

Aiwa Co. Ltd. (50.6%); Intervision Inc.; Sony Ichinomiya Corporation; Sony Inazawa Corporation; Sony Oita Corporation; Sony Enterprise Co., Ltd.; Sony Kisarazu Corporation; Sony Kita Kanto Corporation; Kibo Industry Corporation; Sony Chemicals Corporation; Sony Kohda Corporation; Sony Kokubu Corporation; Sony Communication Network Corporation; Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.; Sony Components Chiba Corporation; Sony Siroisi Semiconductor Inc.; Sony Life Insurance Co., Ltd.; Sony Senmaya Corporation; Sony Assurance Inc.; Sony/Taiyo Corporation; Sony Digital Products Inc.; Sony Denshi Corporation; Sony Tochigi Corporation; Sony Trading International Corp.; Sony Nagasaki Corporation; Sony Nakaniida Corporation; Sony Neagari Corporation; Sony Hamamatsu Corporation; Sony Pictures Entertainment (Japan) Inc.; Sony Pictures Television Japan Inc.; Sony PCL Inc.; Sony Finance International, Inc.; Sony Plaza Co., Ltd.; Sony Precision Technology Inc.; Sony Broadcast Products Corporation; Sony Broadcast Media Co., Ltd.; Sony Bronson Corporation; Sony Marketing Co., Ltd.; Sony Max Corporation; Sony Mizunami Corporation; Sony Minokamo Corporation; Sony Miyagi Corporation; Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc.; Sony Logistics Corporation; Sony of Canada Ltd.; Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. (U.S.A.); Sony Corporation of America (U.S.A.); Sony Electronics Inc. (U.S.A.); Sony Latin America Inc. (U.S.A.); Sony Magnetic Products Inc. of America (U.S.A.); Sony Music Entertainment Inc. (U.S.A.); Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (U.S.A.); Sony Argentina S.A.; Sony Comercio e Industria Ltda. (Brazil); Sony Componentes Ltda. (Brazil); Sony da Amazonia Ltda. (Brazil); Sony Chile Ltda.; Sony de Mexico S.A. de C.V.; Sony Corporation of Panama, S.A.; Sony Puerto Rico, Inc.; Sony de Venezuela S.A.; Sony Austria GmbH; Sony DADC Austria A.G.; Sony Service Centre (Europe) N.V. (Belgium); Sony Czech, spol. s.r.o.; Sony Nordic A/S (Denmark); Sony France S.A.; Sony Berlin G.m.b.H. (Germany); Sony Deutschland G.m.b.H. (Germany); Sony Europe GmbH (Germany); Sony International (Europe) G.m.b.H. (Germany); Sony Hungaria kft (Hungary); Sony Italia S.p.A. (Italy); Sony Logistics Europe B.V. (Netherlands); Sony Poland Sp.z.o.o.; Sony Portugal Ltda.; Sony C.I.S. A/O (Russia); Sony Slovakia Spol. Sr. O.; Sony España, S.A. (Spain); Sony Overseas S.A. (Switzerland); Sony Eurasia Pazarlama A.S. (Turkey); Sony United Kingdom Limited; Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited (U.K.); Sony Entertainment Holdings Europe Ltd. (U.K.); Sony (China) Limited (Beijing); Sony Corporation of Hong Kong Ltd.; Sony International (Hong Kong) Ltd.; Sony India Limited; P.T. Sony Indonesia; P.T. Sony Electronics Indonesia; Sony Electronics of Korea Corp.; Sony Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.; Sony Technology (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.; Sony Philippines, Inc.; Sony Electronics (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.; Sony Industries Taiwan Co., Ltd.; Sony Video Taiwan Co., Ltd.; Sony Magnetic Products (Thailand) Co., Ltd.; Sony Mobile Electronics (Thailand) Co., Ltd.; Sony Semiconductor (Thailand) Co., Ltd.; Sony Siam Industries Co., Ltd. (Thailand); Sony Thai Co. Ltd. (Thailand); Sony Vietnam Limited; Sony Australia Ltd.; Sony New Zealand Ltd.; Sony Gulf FZE (United Arab Emirates); Sony South Africa (Pty.) Ltd.

Principal Competitors

Nintendo Co., Ltd.; Matsushita Electric Corporation; Motorola, Inc.; Hitachi, Ltd.; Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.; Toshiba Corporation; Yamaha Corporation; Victor Company of Japan, Limited; Sharp Corporation; Bose Corporation; Samsung Group; Pioneer Corporation; SANYO Electric Co., Ltd.; Canon Inc.; AOL Time Warner Inc.; BASF Aktiengesellschaft; Bertelsmann AG; Compaq Computer Corporation; Daewoo Group; Dell Computer Corporation; EMI Group plc; Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.; Fujitsu Limited; Harman International Industries, Incorporated; International Business Machines Corporation; Intel Corporation; LG Electronics Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; NEC Corporation; Nokia Corporation; Oki Electric Industry Company Limited; Viacom Inc.; Virgin Group Ltd.; Vivendi Universal S.A.; The Walt Disney Company.

Further Reading

Armstrong, Larry, Christopher Power, and G. David Wallace, 'Sony's Challenge,' Business Week, June 1, 1987, pp. 64+.

Browning, E.S., 'Japan's Sony, Famous for Consumer Electronics, Decides That the Future Lies in Sales to Business,' Wall Street Journal, October 9, 1984.

Brull, Steven V., Neil Gross, and Robert D. Hof, 'Sony's New World,' Business Week, May 27, 1996, pp. 100+.

Carvell, Tim, 'How Sony Created a Monster,' Fortune, June 8, 1998, pp. 162+.

Cieply, Michael, 'Sony's Profitless Prosperity,' Forbes, October 24, 1983, pp. 128+.

Fulford, Benjamin, 'Godzilla Needs Batteries: Sony, Japan's Most Famous Company, Is in a Slump,' Forbes, September 18, 2000, p. 66.

Gross, Neil, and William J. Holstein, 'Why Sony Is Plugging into Columbia,' Business Week, October 16, 1989, pp. 56+.

Kunii, Irene M., and Ron Grover, 'Sony Slides into a Slump,' Business Week, June 5, 2000, p. 68.

Kunii, Irene M., Emily Thornton, and Janet Rae-Dupree, 'Sony's Shakeup,' Business Week, March 22, 1999, pp. 52-53.

Kunii, Irene M., et al., 'The Games Sony Plays,' Business Week, June 15, 1998, pp. 128-30.

Landro, Luar, Yumiko Ono, and Elizabeth Rubinfein, 'A Changing Sony Aims to Own the `Software' That Its Products Need,' Wall Street Journal, December 30, 1988, p. 1.

Lubove, Seth, and Neil Weinberg, 'Creating a Seamless Company,' Forbes, December 20, 1993, p. 152.

Lyons, Nick, The Sony Vision, New York: Crown, 1976.

'Media Colossus: Sony Is Out to Be the World's One-Stop Shop for Entertainment,' Business Week, March 25, 1991, p. 64.

Morita, Akio, From a 500-Dollar Company to a Global Corporation: The Growth of Sony, Pittsburgh: Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1985, 41 p.

------, Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony, New York: Dutton, 1986, 309 p.

------, 'When Sony Was an Up-and-Comer,' Forbes, October 6, 1986, pp. 98+.

Morris, Kathleen, 'Lonesome Samurai: Under Major Pressure on a Number of Fronts, Sony Goes It Alone As Usual,' Financial World, May 23, 1995, pp. 26-29.

Nathan, John, Sony: The Private Life, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999, 347 p.

Palmer, Jay, 'Back in the Game,' Barron's, April 15, 1996, pp. 31-35.

Schlender, Brent, 'Sony on the Brink,' Fortune, June 12, 1995, pp. 60+.

------, 'Sony Plays to Win,' Fortune, May 1, 2000, pp. 143-46+.

------, 'Sony's New President: Here's the Plan,' Fortune, April 17, 1995, pp. 18-19.

Siklos, Richard, Ronald Grover, and Irene M. Kunii, 'Does Sony Really Need a Partner?,' Business Week, October 11, 1999, pp. 118-19.

Smith, Lee, 'Sony Battles Back,' Fortune, April 15, 1985, pp. 26+.

'Sony: A Diversification Plan Tuned to the People Factor,' Business Week, February 9, 1981, p. 88.

— Maura Troester; Update: David E. Salamie

For other uses, see Sony (disambiguation).

Sony Corporation
ソニー株式会社

Type	Public
Traded as	TYO: 6758 NYSE: SNE
Industry	Conglomerate
Founded	7 May 1946[1]
Founder(s)	Masaru Ibuka Akio Morita
Headquarters	Minato, Tokyo, Japan
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Sir Howard Stringer[2] (Chairman) Kazuo Hirai (President & CEO) Ryōji Chūbachi (Vice Chairman)
Products	Electronics, semiconductors, video games, mass media, broadcasting and cable, music and entertainment, telecommunication, digital distribution
Services	Financial services, insurance, banking, credit finance and advertising agency
Revenue	¥6.395 trillion (2012)[3]
Operating income	¥-70 billion (2012)[3]
Net income	¥-456 billion (2012)[3]
Total assets	¥13.29 trillion (2012)[3]
Total equity	¥2.028 trillion (2012)[3]
Employees	162,700 (2012)[4]
Subsidiaries	List of subsidiaries
Website	Sony.net

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Sony Corporation (ソニー株式会社, Sonī Kabushiki Gaisha^?) (TYO: 6758, NYSE: SNE), commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Kōnan Minato, Tokyo, Japan.^[5] It ranked 73 on the 2011 list of Fortune Global 500.^[3][6] Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics products for the consumer and professional markets.^[7]

Sony Corporation is the electronics business unit and the parent company of the Sony Group, which is engaged in business through its four operating segments – Electronics (including video games, network services and medical business), Pictures, Music and Financial Services.^[8][9][10] These make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal business operations include Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics in the U.S.), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Mobile Communications (formerly Sony Ericsson), and Sony Financial. As a semiconductor maker, Sony is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.

The Sony Group (ソニー・グループ, Sonī Gurūpu^?) is a Japan-based corporate group primarily focused on the Electronics (such as AV/IT products and components), Game (such as PlayStation), Entertainment (such as motion pictures and music), and Financial Services (such as insurance and banking) sectors. The group consists of Sony Corporation (holding and electronics), Sony Computer Entertainment (game), Sony Pictures Entertainment (motion pictures), Sony Music Entertainment (music), Sony/ATV Music Publishing (music publishing), Sony Financial Holdings (financial services) and others.

Its founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka derived the name from sonus, the Latin word for sound, and also from the English slang word "sonny", since they considered themselves to be "sonny boys", a loan word into Japanese which in the early 1950s connoted smart and presentable young men.^[7]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Origin of name 2 Formats and technologies 3 Business units 3.1 Sony Computer Entertainment 3.2 Sony Pictures Entertainment 3.3 Sony Music Entertainment 3.4 Sony Mobile Communications 3.5 Sony Electronics 3.5.1 Audio 3.5.2 Computing 3.5.3 Photography 3.5.4 Video 3.6 Sony Finance 4 Corporate information 4.1 Personnel 4.2 Finances 4.3 Marketing 4.4 Mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures 4.5 Regional segmentation 4.6 Environmental record 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

History

Masaru Ibuka, the co-founder of Sony

On 7 May 1946, after the end of World War II, Masaru Ibuka started a radio repair shop in a bomb-damaged Shirokiya department store building in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo. The next year, he was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo^[11] (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation). The company built Japan's first tape recorder, called the Type-G.^[11] In the early 1950s, Ibuka traveled in the United States and heard about Bell Labs' invention of the transistor.^[11] He convinced Bell to license the transistor technology to his Japanese company. While most American companies were researching the transistor for its military applications, Ibuka and Morita looked to apply it to communications. Although the American companies Regency Electronics and Texas Instruments built the first transistor radio as joint venture, it was Ibuka's company that made them commercially successful for the first time.^[12]

In August 1955, Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo released the Sony MK-55, Japan's first commercially produced transistor radio.^[13] They followed up in December of the same year by releasing the Sony TR-72, a product that won favor both within Japan and in export markets, including Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Germany. Featuring six transistors, push-pull output and greatly improved sound quality, the TR-72 continued to be a popular seller into the early sixties.

In May 1956, the company released the TR-6, which featured an innovative slim design and sound quality capable of rivaling portable tube radios. It was for the TR-6 that Sony first contracted Atchan, a cartoon character created by Fuyuhiko Okabe, to become its advertising character. Now known as "Sony Boy", the character first appeared in a cartoon ad holding a TR-6 to his ear, but went on to represent the company in ads for a variety of products well into the mid-sixties.^[11] The following year, 1957, Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo came out with the TR-63 model, then the smallest (112 × 71 × 32 mm) transistor radio in commercial production. It was a worldwide commercial success.^[11]

University of Arizona professor Michael Brian Schiffer, PhD, says, "Sony was not first, but its transistor radio was the most successful. The TR-63 of 1957 cracked open the U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." 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 5,000,000 units by the end of 1968.

Sony Group Headquarters at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo

Sony's headquarters moved to Minato, Tokyo from Shinagawa, Tokyo around the end of 2006.^[14][15]

Origin of name

When Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was looking for a romanized name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials, TTK. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TKK.^[11] 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.^[16]

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 familiar term used in 1950s America to call a boy.^[7] 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.^[17]

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.^[11]

Formats and technologies

Further information: List of Sony trademarks

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. The most infamous of these was the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when Sony marketed the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC. In the end, VHS gained critical mass in the marketbase and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs and Sony adopted the format. While Betamax is for all practical purposes an obsolete format, a professional-oriented component video format called Betacam that was derived from Betamax is still used today, especially in the television industry, although far less so in recent years with the introduction of digital and high definition.

Sony launched the Betamax videocassette recording format in 1975. In 1979 the Walkman brand was introduced, in the form of the world's first portable music player.

1982 saw the launch of Sony's professional Betacam videotape format and the collaborative Compact Disc (CD) format. 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 a lot of 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. In 1983 Sony launched the MSX, a home computer system, and introduced the world (with their counterpart Philips) to the Compact Disc (CD). In 1984 Sony launched the Discman series which extended their Walkman brand to portable CD products. In 1985 Sony launched their Handycam products and the Video8 format. 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.

In addition to developing consumer-based recording media, after the launch of the CD Sony began development of commercially based recording media. In 1986 they launched Write-Once optical discs (WO) and in 1988 launched Magneto-optical discs which were around 125MB size for the specific use of archival data storage.^[18]

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 based on MMCD technology, viz EFMPlus. The unified disc format was called DVD which was marketed in 1997.

Sony introduced the MiniDisc format in 1993 as an alternative to Philips DCC or Digital Compact Cassette. 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 de facto standard natively, although the provided software SonicStage would convert MP3 files into the ATRAC or ATRAC3 formats.

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). This format employed eight channels (7.1) of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at the time. Unlike Dolby Digital, SDDS utilized a method of backup by having mirrored arrays of bits on both sides of the film which acted as a measure of reliability in case the film was partially damaged. 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.

In 1998, Sony launched their Memory Stick format; 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. This is due in part to the SD format's greater throughput (which allows faster recording and access), higher capacities, and significantly lower price per unit capacity compared to Memory Sticks available at the same time. Sony has made updates to the Memory Stick format with Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Micro.

Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format (S/PDIF) and the high-fidelity audio system SACD. The latter has since been entrenched in a format war with DVD-Audio. At present, neither has gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs are preferred by consumers because of ubiquitous presence of CD drives in consumer devices.

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. Recordings on the Hi-MD Walkmans can be transferred to and from the computer virtually unrestricted, unlike earlier NetMD. In addition to saving audio on the discs, Hi-MD allows the storage of computer files such as documents, videos and photos. Hi-MD introduced the ability to record CD-quality audio with a linear PCM recording feature. It was the first time since MiniDisc's introduction in 1992 that the ATRAC codec could be bypassed and lossless CD-quality audio could be recorded on the small discs.

Sony was one of the leading developers of the Blu-ray Disc optical disc format, the newest standard for disc-based content delivery. The format emerged as the market leader over the competing standard, Toshiba's HD DVD, after a 2 year-long format war. The first Blu-ray players became commercially available in 2006. By the end of 2007 the format had the backing of every major motion picture studio except Universal, Paramount, and DreamWorks.^[19][20][21] The Blu-ray format's popularity continued to increase, solidifying its position as the dominant HD media format, and Toshiba announced its decision to stop supporting HD DVD in 2008. Now, all major studios support Blu-ray and release their films on the format.

Business units

Sony offers a number of products in a variety of product lines around the world. Sony has developed a music playing robot called Rolly, dog-shaped robots called AIBO, humanoids, and QRIO.

Sony Computer Entertainment

The Slimline PlayStation 2 with controller

Main article: Sony Computer Entertainment

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 for Sony to develop a CD addon for the SNES. Sony announced the proposed product, dubbed the "Play Station" at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show. However, Nintendo realized that in the original contract, Sony would have had complete control over all CD-based titles for system, and they secretly cancelled all plans. The two companies reached a deal where the Play Station would have a port for the SNES games, but Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits from the games, and the SNES would continue to use the Sony-designed audio chip. Sony then began to rework the Play Station concept to target a new generation of hardware and software. The SNES port was removed, as well as the space between "Play" and "Station", making the name of the console PlayStation.

In late 1994, Sony launched the first PlayStation to compete with other consoles. Massively successful, the console helped to end Sega's hardware production and confined Nintendo to a second place position in the console wars. 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, but was considerably more expensive than competitors Xbox 360 and Wii. The PlayStation has three has generally sold more poorly than those competitors, although not by a large margin. It later introduced the PlayStation Move, an accessory that allows players to control video games using motion gestures.

Sony extended the brand to the portable games market in 2005 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. The company went on to release its second portable video game system, PlayStation Vita, in 2011 and 2012.

Promotional efforts for their PlayStation line have sometimes encountered controversy. Sony admitted in late 2005 to hiring graffiti artists to spray paint advertisements for their PlayStation Portable game system in seven major cities.^[22][23] In November 2006, a marketing company employed by Sony created a website entitled "All I want for Xmas is a PSP", designed to promote the PSP through viral marketing. The site contained a blog, which was purportedly written by an average person. However, the web site was registered to a marketing company. Sony admitted the site's true origin in a post on the blog, and have since taken down the site. Sony admitted that the idea was "poorly executed".^[24]

In 2003, Immersion Corporation sued Sony, claiming that Sony's PlayStation "Dual Shock" controllers infringed on Immersion's patents. Immersion was awarded US$82 million in damages in 2004 and an additional US$8.7 million in 2005. This is likely the reason that the Sixaxis controller for the PlayStation 3 had no rumble feature.^{[citation needed]} The DualShock 3 has since been made available for the PlayStation 3, reintroducing rumble capabilities. A California judge ordered Sony to pay Immersion a licensing fee.^{[citation needed]}

Sony Online Entertainment operates online services for PlayStation, as well as several other online games.

In April 2011 Sony announced that the PlayStation Network (PSN) had been attacked, allegedly resulting in the theft of the personal information of 77 million account holders. Sony shut down the PlayStation Network "indefinitely" following the attack,^[25] although it returned to service on 14 May, following a 26 day outage.^[26] Sony announced plans for a program which includes a $1 million identity theft insurance policy per user.^[27]

Sony Pictures Entertainment

Main article: Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (SPE) is the television and film production/distribution unit of Sony. It is one of the largest film and television companies in the world. Its group sales in 2010 were US$7.2 billion.^[28][29] The company has produced some of the most notable movie franchises, including Spider-Man, The Karate Kid, and Men in Black. It has also produced popular television game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.

The company significantly expanded its market share when it acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1989 for $3.4 billion. Columbia lives on in the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, a subsidiary of SPE which in turn owns TriStar Pictures and Columbia Pictures. SPE's television division is known as Sony Pictures Television.

Sony Pictures Entertainment encountered controversy in the early 2000s. In July 2000, a marketing executive working for Sony Corporation created a fictitious film critic, David Manning, who gave consistently good reviews for releases from Sony subsidiary Columbia Pictures that generally received poor reviews amongst real critics.^[30] Sony later pulled the ads, suspended Manning's creator and his supervisor and paid $325,000 in fines to the state of Connecticut,^[31] and $1.5m to fans who saw the reviewed films in the US.^[32] In 2006 Sony started using ARccOS Protection on some of their film DVDs, but was forced to issue a recall.^[33]

Sony Music Entertainment

Main article: Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment (also known as SME or Sony Music) is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation. The company owns full or partial rights to the catalogues of Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Usher, Eminem, Akon, and others.

In one of its largest-ever acquisitions, Sony purchased CBS Record Group in 1987 for US$2 billion. In the process, Sony gained the rights to the 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 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. A security researcher revealed that Sony BMG's music CDs had installed a rootkit on the user's computer as a DRM measure, which was difficult to detect or remove.^[34] This constitutes a crime in many countries, and poses a major security risk to affected users.^{[citation needed]} Sony provided an uninstaller that removed Sony's DRM program from the user's computer. Sony BMG faced several class action lawsuits regarding this matter.^[35] In 2007, Sony entered into a settlement that required that Sony BMG allow consumers to exchange the CDs, and to reimburse consumers for repair of damage to their computers that they may have incurred while removing the software.^[36] 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 the company and formed a new Sony Music Entertainment in 2008. Since then, the company has undergone management changes.

In 1995, Sony purchased a 50% stake in 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 much of the publishing rights to the catalogue of The Beatles. Sony purchased digital music recognition company Gracenote for US$260 million in 2008.

Sony Mobile Communications

Main article: Sony Mobile Communications

Sales of Sony Ericsson mobile phones.

Sony Mobile Communications AB (formerly Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB) is a multinational mobile phone manufacturing company headquartered in London, United Kingdom and a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation.

In 2001, Sony entered into a joint venture with Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, forming Sony Ericsson.^[37] Initial sales were rocky, and the company posted losses in 2001 and 2002. However, SMC reached a profit in 2003. Sony Ericsson distinguished itself with multimedia-capable mobile phones, which included features such as cameras. These were unusual for the time. Despite their innovations, SMC faced intense competition from Apple's iPhone, released in 2007. From 2008 to 2010, amid a global recession, SMC slashed its workforce by several thousand. Sony acquired Ericsson's share of the venture in 2012 for over US$1 billion.^[38] Sony Mobile Communications now focuses exclusively on the smartphone market. In 2009, SMC was the fourth-largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world (after Nokia, Samsung and LG).^[39] By 2010, its market share had fallen to sixth place.^[40]

SMC has utilized various brand names from other Sony properties. Its C series (produced from 2008 to 2009) used Cyber-shot branding. Its W series (started in 2005) uses the Walkman name. In terms of mobile-specific brands, SMC sells many of its mobile phones using the Xperia brand. The line has been manufactured since 2008 and now accounts for more than half of the company's mobile phone sales. The name Xperia is derived from the word "experience." As of 2012^[update], nearly all Xperia mobile phones are smartphones.

Sony Electronics

Audio

Sony produced the world's first portable music player, the Walkman. 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. Walkman originally referred to portable audio cassette players. The company now uses the Walkman brand to market its portable audio and video players as well as a line of former Sony Ericsson mobile phones.

The prototype for the Walkman was built in 1978 by audio-division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his frequent trans-Pacific plane trips.^[41] The name "Walkman" was based on its precursor, the Pressman tape recorder. An initial prototype of the Walkman was in fact made by replacing the recording circuit and speaker from the Pressman with a stereo amplifier.^[42]

Sony utilized a related brand, Discman, to refer to its CD players. It dropped this name in the late 1990s.

Computing

Main article: VAIO

Sony brands many of its computer products using the VAIO ( /ˈvaɪ.oʊ/) brand. Originally an acronym of Video Audio Integrated Operation, this was amended to Visual Audio Intelligent Organizer in 2008 to celebrate the brand's 10th anniversary. The VAIO logo represents the integration of analog and digital technology with the 'VA' representing an analog wave and the 'IO' representing a digital binary code.

Sony produced computers during the 1980s, exclusively for sale in the Japanese market. 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 with the PCV series of desktops. The branding was created by Timothy Healy to distinguish items that integrate consumer audio and video with conventional computing products, such as the VAIO W Series personal computer, which functioned as a regular computer and a miniature entertainment center.

Sony faced considerable controversy when some of its laptop batteries malfunctioned. In 2006, a Sony laptop battery exploded and caught fire.^[43] That year, Sony and Dell admitted to major flaws in several Sony batteries that could result in the battery overheating and catching fire. As a result they recalled over 4.1 million laptop batteries in the largest computer-related recall to that point in history. The cost of this recall was shared between Dell and Sony.^[44][45][46] A Japanese newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, reported that Sony was aware of faults in its notebook PC batteries in December 2005 but failed to fully study the problem.^[47][48]

Photography

Sony offers a range of digital cameras, ranging from point-and-shoot models to digital SLRs. It brands many of its digital cameras using the Cyber-shot name. The Cyber-shot range is known for its use of Carl Zeiss lenses. All Cyber-shot models have a DSC prefix in their names, which is an acronym for "Digital Still Camera". All Cyber-shot cameras accept Sony's proprietary Memory Stick or Memory Stick PRO Duo flash memory. Select models have also supported CompactFlash. Current Cyber-shot cameras support may support Memory Stick PRO Duo, SD and/or SDHC.

The first Cyber-shot was introduced in 1996. At the time, digital cameras were a relative novelty. In October 2005, Sony reported problems with the charge-coupled devices (CCD) in 20 models of digital still cameras. The problems can prevent the cameras from taking clear pictures, and in some cases, possibly prevent a picture being taken at all. Sony repaired or replaced affected cameras at no charge.^[49] From 2008 to 2009, Sony Ericsson produced a line of mobile phones using the Cyber-shot brand.

Video

In 1968 Sony introduced the Trinitron brand name for its lines of aperture grille cathode ray tube televisions and (later) 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 USA 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 for its parent company Sony KK. The name is an acronym of "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 televisions and their components are manufactured in Sony's plants in Japan, Mexico, and Slovakia for their respective regions and are also assembled from imported parts in Brazil, Spain, China and Malaysia. Principal design work for BRAVIA products is performed at Sony's research facilities in Japan, at the research and development department at the Sony de Mexico facility in Baja California, Mexico and at the Sony Europe facility in Nitra, Slovakia. Sony has also utilized the Bravia brand on some mobile phones in North American, Japanese and European markets.

Sony also sells a range of DVD players. It has shifted its focus in recent years to promoting the Blu-ray format, including discs and players.

Sony Finance

Sony Financial Holdings Inc. (ソニーフィナンシャルホールディングス株式会社, Sonī Finansharu Hōrudingusu Kabushiki-gaisha^?) (TYO: 8729) is a holding company for Sony's financial services business. It owns and oversees the operation of Sony Life (in Japan and the Philippines), Sony Assurance, Sony Bank, Sony Bank Securities. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

Corporate information

Sony's current president and chief executive officer Kaz Hirai

Personnel

Kazuo Hirai currently serves as president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Sony Corporation. He was promoted to his current position in April 2012.^[50]

Hirai replaced Howard Stringer as CEO. Stringer will remain as Chairman^[50] until the annual shareholders meeting and is expected to become the Chairman of the Board in June 2012.^[51][52] In 2005, Stringer replaced Nobuyuki Idei as CEO. Sony's decision to replace Idei with the British Howard Stringer marked the first time that a foreigner has run a major Japanese electronics firm.

Hirai also replaced Ryoji Chubachi as president. Kunitake Ando served as president before Chubachi.

Finances

Sony is one of Japan's largest corporations by revenue. It had revenues of ¥6.395 trillion in 2012. It also maintains large reserves of cash, with ¥13.29 trillion on hand as of 2012. In May 2012, Sony shares were valued at about $15 billion.^[53]

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 Japanese earthquake. 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' years.^[54] Net worth, as measured by stockholder equity, has steadily grown from $17.9 billion in March 2002 to $35.6 billion through December 2011.^[55] Earnings yield (inverse of P:E) 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.

In April 2012 Sony announced that it would reduce its workforce by 10,000 (6% of its employee base) as part of CEO Hirai's effort to get the company back into the green. 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.^[56][57]

Sony has sold off TV factories in Spain, Slovakia and Mexico in the past few years and retains plants of its own in Japan, Brazil, China and Malaysia. In December 2011, Sony has agreed to sell all stake in an LCD joint venture with Samsung Electronics for about $940 million and then Sony will outsource the LCD panel from other company as Sony outsourced in the past few years for more than a half of its production.^[58]

Marketing

Main article: Sony marketing

Sony's former slogans were "The One and Only", "It's a Sony" and "like.no.other". Its current^[when?] slogan is "make.believe".

Mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures

This section requires expansion.

On 28 March 2012, Sony Corporation and Sharp Corporation 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^[59]

Further information: List of acquisitions by Sony Corporation

Regional segmentation

Slightly more than 50% of the electronics' segment's total annual production during the fiscal year 2005 took place in Japan, including the production of digital cameras, video cameras, flat panel televisions, personal computers, semiconductors and components such as batteries and Memory Sticks. Approximately 65% of the annual production in Japan was destined for other regions. China accounted for slightly more than 10% of total annual production, approximately 70% of which was destined for other regions.

Asia, excluding Japan and China, accounted for slightly more than 10% of total annual production with approximately 60% destined for Japan, the US and the EU. The Americas and Europe together accounted for the remaining slightly less than 25% of total annual production, most of which was destined for local distribution and sale.^[60]

Sony's Sales and Distribution by Geographical Regions in 2009^[61]

Geographic Region	Total Sales (yen in millions)
Japan	1,873,219
United States	2,512,345
Europe	2,307,658
Other Area	2,041,270

On 9 December 2008, Sony Corporation 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 a year.^[62]

Environmental record

In November 2011, Sony was ranked 9th (jointly with Panasonic) in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics. 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.^[63] 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.^[63] In 2007, Sony ranked 14th on the Greenpeace guide. Sony fell from its earlier 11th place ranking due to Greenpeace's claims that Sony had double standards in their waste policies.^[64]

Since 1976, Sony has had an Environmental Conference.^[65] 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".^[66] 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.^[67]

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 clean up of the toxic chemicals contained in their merchandise.^[68]

See also

	Sony portal
	Tokyo portal
	Companies portal

• List of companies of Japan
• Panasonic

References

1. ^ "Sony Global – Corporate Information". http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/. Retrieved 11 June 2010. 
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Further reading

• PlayStation Division is Under Review
• Made in Japan by Akio Morita and Sony, HarperCollins (1994)
• Sony: The Private Life by John Nathan, Houghton Mifflin (1999)
• Sony Radio, Sony Transistor Radio 35th Anniversary 1955–1990 – information booklet (1990)
• The Portable Radio in American Life by University of Arizona Professor Michael Brian Schiffer, PhD (The University of Arizona Press, 1991).
• The Japan Project: Made in Japan – a documentary about Sony's early history in the U.S. by Terry Sanders.

External links

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v t e Sony Corporation Primary businesses Sony Corporation (electronics & holding of the Sony group) · Sony Music Entertainment (music) · Sony Pictures Entertainment (motion pictures and television) · Sony Computer Entertainment (video games) · Sony Financial Holdings (financial services; 60%) · Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation Technologies and brands α · Betacam · Blu-ray · BRAVIA · CD · Cyber-shot · Dash · Dream Machine · DVD · Handycam · HDCAM/HDCAM-SR · LocationFree · Memory Stick · MiniDisc · MiniDV · mylo · Reader · S/PDIF · SDDS · SXRD · Sony Tablet · UMD · VAIO · Video8/Hi8/Digital8 · Walkman · Walkman Phones · XDCAM · Xplōd · HMZ-T1 Historical products AIBO · CV-2000 · DAT · Betamax · Sony CLIÉ · Discman · JumboTron · Lissa · Mavica · NEWS · Qualia · Rolly · TR-55 · Trinitron · U-matic · Watchman · WEGA Electronics Sony EMCS · Sony Electronics (subsidiary in the US) · Sony Creative Software · Sony Mobile Communications  · S-LCD (50% minus 1 share) · Sony Mobile Display · Sony Optiarc · Sharp Display Products (7%) · Aiwa (former) Sony Music Entertainment Sony/ATV Music Publishing (50%) · Columbia Records · Epic Records · RCA Records · Sony Music Nashville (Arista Nashville, BNA Records, Columbia Nashville, RCA Records Nashville) · Provident Label Group · Verity Gospel Music Group · Sony Music Latin · Sony Masterworks  · Legacy Recordings  · RED Distribution  · IODA  · Syco Music  · Syco TV  · Syco Film  · Sony Music Australia · Sony Music Japan  · Gracenote · Aniplex · A-1 Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group (Columbia Pictures · Sony Pictures Classics · Screen Gems · TriStar Pictures · Triumph Films) · Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (Destination Films · Stage 6 Films · Affirm Films) · Sony Pictures Television Group (Adelaide Productions · Culver Entertainment · Embassy Row · 2waytraffic · Lean-M  · Gogglebox Entertainment · Victory Television · Silver River Productions · Starling · Huaso · Floresta · Teleset) Sony Pictures Home Entertainment · Sony Wonder · Sony Pictures Family Entertainment Group · Sony Pictures Digital (Sony Pictures Imageworks · Sony Pictures Animation · Sony Pictures Mobile) · Sony Pictures Studios · Sony Pictures Consumer Marketing (Sony Pictures Consumer Products · Sony Pictures Loot) U.S. networks Sony Movie Channel · GSN (40%), joint venture with DirecTV · FEARnet HD (joint venture with Comcast and Lionsgate) · 3net (joint venture with Discovery Communications and IMAX) International networks Sony Entertainment Television (Asia, South East Asia, India, Latin America, South Africa, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Baltic and United Kingdom) · AXN · AXN HD · AXN HD+1 · AXN Asia · AXN India · AXN Pakistan · AXN White · AXN Crime · AXN Black · AXN Mystery · AXN Sci Fi · AXN Spin · Sony Aath · Multi Screen Media · Animax · Animax Asia · Animax India · Animax Pakistan · Animax Korea · Animax Eastern Europe · BeTV · Sony Spin · SET One · SET Max · Sony SIX · Sony MIX · SET PIX · SAB TV · Men&Movies · Movies4Men Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Online Entertainment · PlayStation · PSP · PlayStation Vita · Cellius (49%) · Square Enix (8.25%) · Sony Imagesoft (defunct) Online distribution platforms Sony Entertainment Network (Music Unlimited · Video Unlimited · PlayStation Network) · FEARnet · The Minisode Network · Crackle Financial services Sony Financial Holdings · Sony Life Insurance · Sony Assurance · Sony Bank · Sony Bank Securities Other businesses So-net Entertainment · Sony Broadcast & Professional Research Laboratories · Sony Sendai Other assets Sony Corporation of America (umbrella company in the US) · Other subsidiaries Joint ventures Sony/ATV · FeliCa Networks · Vevo · Cellius (49%) · Sharp Display Products (34% by April 2011) Key personnel Kazuo Hirai · Masaru Ibuka · Nobuyuki Idei · Yasuo Kuroki · Ken Kutaragi · Michael Lynton · Akio Morita · Norio Ohga · Amy Pascal · Howard Stringer  · Nicole Seligman Category ·  Commons ·  Wikinews

Links to related articles v t e Electronics industry in Japan Akai Alaxala Networks Alinco Alps Alpine Anritsu AOR Brother Canon Casio Cateye Chinon Citizen Watch Copal Clarion Contec Cosina D&M Holdings Daikin Denon Koppel Inc. Denso DNP DX Antenna EIKI Eizo Elpida Epson FANUC Fostex Frex Fuji Electric Fujikura Fuji Xerox Fujifilm Fujitsu Funai Futaba Hamamatsu Photonics Hitachi Hori Hoya I-O Data Ibanez Icom Ikegami Tsushinki Iwatsu JEOL Japan Display JRC JR Propo JVC Kenwood Kawai Kenko Keyence Kikusui Kiramek KO Propo Konica Minolta Korg Kyocera Luxman Mabuchi Motor Mamiya Maspro Maxell Melco Mimaki Minebea Minoura Mitsubishi Electric Mitsumi Murata Manufacturing Mutoh Nakamichi NEC Nichia Nikon Nintendo Nitto Denko Oki Olympus Omron Onkyo Orion Electric Panasonic Pentax Pioneer Pixela Plextor Ricoh Rohm Roland Rubycon Sansui Sanwa Denshi Sanwa Electronic Instrument Sanyo Sega Sammy Seiko Sekonic Sharp Shimadzu SII Sony Stax Star Micronics Sumitomo Electric Sigma Taiyo Yuden Tamron TEAC TDK Tiger Tokyo Electron Toshiba Uniden Wacom Yaesu Yagi-Uda Yamaha Yaskawa Zojirushi Zuken v t e Nikkei 225 companies of Japan 7&i Advantest ÆON AGC Ajinomoto ALPS ANA Asahi Breweries Asahi Kasei Astellas Bank of Yokohama Bridgestone Canon Casio Chiba Bank Chiyoda Chuden Chugai Chuo Mitsui Trust Citizen Clarion Comsys Credit Saison CSK Daiichi Sankyo Daikin Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Daiwa House Daiwa Securities Denka Denso Dentsu DNP Dowa Ebara Eisai Fanuc Fast Retailing Fuji Electric Fuji Heavy Industries Fujifilm Fujikura Fujitsu Fukuoka Financial Furukawa Furukawa Electric GS Yuasa Heiwa Real Estate Hino Hitachi Hitachi Construction Machinery Hitz Hokuetsu Paper Honda IHI INPEX Isetan-Mitsukoshi Isuzu Itochu JFE J. 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Mizuho MUFG Nintendo Nippon Steel Nissan Nomura NTT NTT docomo Panasonic Shin-Etsu Sony Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Takeda TEPCO Tokio Marine Toshiba Toyota Large 70 ÆON AGC Asahi Kasei Bank of Yokohama Bridgestone Chubu Electric Power Daiichi Sankyo Daikin Daiwa House Daiwa Securities Denso DNP Eisai FANUC Fujifilm Fujitsu Hitachi Hoya INPEX Itochu JR Central JR West Kao Keyence Kirin Kobelco Kubota Kyocera Kyushu Electric Power Marubeni Mitsubishi Chemical Mitsubishi Electric Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Mitsui Fudosan MOL MSIG Murata NEC Nidec Nikon Nippon Oil Nitto Denko ORIX Resona Ricoh Rohm Secom Sekisui House Sharp Shiseido SMC SoftBank Sompo Japan Sumitomo Chemical Sumitomo Corporation Sumitomo Electric Sumitomo Metal Mining Sumitomo Metals Sumitomo Realty Sumitomo Trust Suzuki T&D Holdings TDK Tohoku Electric Power Tokyo Electron Tokyo Gas Toppan Toray Yahoo! 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Methodology: FY2010/11 applicable revenues of over: group 1-11 (ex. semiconductor foundries) - US$3 billion; group 12 - US$10 billion; group 13 - US$2 billion; semiconductor foundries - US$0.5 billion

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