The summer of 1979 will remain in the memory within Japan’s industrial history and in the annals of Sony with the birth of the walkman, a revolutionary object that was born of a desire. Akio Morita, director and co-founder of the brand was passionate about golf but also to classical music. How do these two activities at the same time?, asked for days. One day he met his team of engineers and without ADO, proposed them imagine a cassette recorder, ultra light, and with headphones. The team put hands to work and in less than nine months invented the walkman. The director of Sony adopted it, launched a huge advertising campaign, and put it on the market. The small device was sold as warm bread. Tokyo, Paris, New York: industrialists in the world vying for the distribution in these cities.
Some 50 million copies were sold during the first decade, 150 million up to 1995 and 186 million in 1999. Gone are the criticism of skeptics. Young people walked through the streets with the appliance, in train entrepreneurs went with hearing aids, athletes ran with the recorder, and the freaks up to the dog put him walkman.