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Sony Corporation (ソニー株式会社, Sonī kabushiki gaisha, commonly known as Sony) is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo.[1][2] The company operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional electronic products, the largest video game console company, the second largest video game publisher, the second largest record company, as well as one of the most comprehensive media companies,[3][4] being the largest Japanese media conglomerate by size overtaking the privately held, family-owned Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, the largest Japanese media conglomerate by revenue. It has historically been and continues to be a major supplier of components for Apple Inc.

Background[]

Sony, with its 50 percent market share in the image sensor market, is among the semiconductor sales leaders[5][6] and, as of 2015, the fifth-largest television manufacturer in the world by annual sales figures. It is the world's largest player in the premium TV market, a market for a television of at least 55 inches with a price higher than $2,500.[7][8]

Sony Corporation is the holding company of the Sony Group (ソニー・グループ), which comprises Sony Electronics, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Financial Holdings, and others.

The company's slogan is Be Moved. Their former slogans were The One and Only (1979–1982), It's a Sony (1982–2005), like.no.other (2005–2009)[9] and make.believe (2009–2013).[10]

Sony has a weak tie to the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) corporate group, the successor to the Mitsui group.[11] Sony is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (in which it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX Core30 indexes) with an additional listing in the form of American depositary receipts listed in the New York Stock Exchange (traded since 1970, making it the oldest Japanese company to be listed in an American exchange), and was ranked 122nd on the 2020 Fortune Global 500 list.[12]

History[]

Sony store NYC 1962

The grand opening of the first Sony store in the United States in 1962.

Sony began in the wake of World War II. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in Shirokiya,[13] a department store building in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. The company started with a capital of ¥190,000[14] and a total of eight employees.[15] On 7 May 1946, Ibuka was joined by Akio Morita to establish a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (東京通信工業, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation).[16] The company built Japan's first tape recorder, called the Type-G.[16][17] In 1958, the company changed its name to "Sony".[18] The first Sony store in the United States was opened on 5th Avenue in New York City on October 1, 1962.[19]

Apple and Sony[]

Sony's first interaction with Apple Computer occurred around 1980 when their Silicon Valley district sales manager Dan'l Lewin presented Sony's new 3.5-inch floppy mechanism to the Macintosh team. After some initial resistance, the drive was incorporated into the first Macintosh computer. Lewin himself was recruited by Apple in January 1981.[20][21] Sony's Trinitron CRT displays were used in many of Apple's own color monitors and all-in-one Macintosh models. Sony engineers were also contracted by Apple to help miniaturize the Macintosh Portable to create the PowerBook 100, which was released in October 1991.[22]

In December 2001, Apple CEO Steve Jobs met with Sony president Kunitake Andō to propose allowing their Vaio laptops to run a secret version of Mac OS X that supported Intel processors. However, the Vaio development team declined. Regardless, Jobs and Andō were known to have admired one another's company work philosophies.[23]

Apple presently uses Sony's imaging sensors for iPhone cameras, most recently the Lidar depth-sensing system in the iPhone 12 line.[24]

References[]

  1. "Access & Map." Sony Global. Retrieved 6 December 2011. "1–7–1 Konan Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0075, Japan" – MapAddress in Japanese: "〒108-0075 東京都港区港南1–7–1"
  2. 20-F (FY2015) pages 1, 25 and F-2, Sony Corporation
  3. Sony in US$2.3 billion deal, becomes the world's biggest music publisher.
  4. "Sony embraces its inner conglomerate", Reuters, 2 May 2020. (in en) 
  5. Top 20 semiconductor sales leaders for Q1 2016 (en).
  6. Sony's key image sensor business hit by smartphone market decline.
  7. Global LCD TV manufacturer market share from 2008 to 2017.. Statista.
  8. "How Samsung fell behind Sony and LG in the premium TV market", Reuters, 2 May 2018. (in en) 
  9. Sony like.no.other Global Brand Development. Blind.
  10. Christopher MacManus (2 September 2009). Sony Insider. 2010-10-27. Retrieved 2016-08-07. Sonyinsider.com.
  11. A Frog in a Well Knows Nothing of the Ocean: A History of Corporate Ownership in Japan pp. 367–466. University of Chicago Press (2005).
  12. Sony 2020 Global 500 – Fortune.
  13. Sundberg, Stephen (18 September 2016). Shirokiya Department Store, c. 1910-1940. | Old Tokyo (en-us).
  14. Sony Global – History (en).
  15. Nobuo Abiko. "Pioneering firm upsets Japan hiring: Pattern broken", The Christian Science Monitor, 26 March 1966, p. 14. 
  16. 16.0 16.1 Sony Global – Sony History.
  17. Neate, Rupert. "A history of Sony's successes and failures", The Guardian, 1 December 2014. 
  18. Error on call to Template:cite book: Parameter title must be specifiedChang, Sea-Jin (25 February 2011). Sony vs Samsung: The Inside Story of the Electronics Giants' Battle For Global Supremacy (en). John Wiley & Sons.
  19. About Sony: Chapter 13, Sony Corporation. Accessed 2021-02-01.
  20. Dan'l Lewin, LinkedIn. Accessed 2020-06-13.
  21. Quick, Hide In This Closet! by Andy Hertzfeld, Folklore. 1983-08.
  22. PowerBook 100: How Sony Perfectly Miniaturized the 16 Pound Macintosh Portable by Leo Titus LeBron V, Low End Mac. 2007-08-08.
  23. The backstory: Sony’s 2001 offer from Steve Jobs to run Mac OS on Vaio laptops by Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac. 2014-02-05.
  24. Exclusive: The iPhone 12 Pro camera will use Sony’s lidar technology by Mark Sullivan, Fast Company. 2020-09-03.

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