THE STORY OF THE SONY WALKMAN

Presented by:

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLEA cycle through which every product goes through from introduction to withdrawal or eventual demise. Four stages are

• Introduction

• Growth

• Maturity

• Decline

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

• Walkman is a Sony brand name for portable audio cassette players• It introduced a change in music listening habits• Prototype was built in 1978 by audio division engineer Nobutoshi

Kihara.• Walkman was launched in 1979 with flashy buttons, leather case

and headphones.• Offered an extra ear jack to let two people listen music at the same

time

INTRODUCTION PHASE

Channel Evaluation

Traditional single-channel strategy.

Manufacture, wholesalers and small and medium-sized retailers.

INTRODUCTION PHASE

Competition Analysis

Panasonic, Aiwa, Toshiba, Sanyo, Sharp, Kenwood.

Competitive advantages:Product Line/Variety.

Product Life-span.

GROWTH PHASE

Channel EvaluationDistributing to network of wholesaler’s who ,in

turn, placed Sony’s Walkman with most retailers.

Walkman was also sold through a variety of outlets, including department stores, mass merchants, and

catalogues.

GROWTH PHASE

Competition Analysis

Toshiba(Walky), Aiwa(Cassette Boy), Panasonic (MiJockey)

Rising competition led Sony to introduce new Walkman models every six months or less.

MATURITY PHASE

Sony joined by competitors like Aiwa, Panasonic & Toshiba

To tackle the competitor Sony launched new variants and new models.

Proliferation of features

Price War

MATURITY PHASE

From Showroom based channel to Retailer based strategy

Advertisement stared focusing more on after- sell service and price

Substitute like i-pad started gaining market

Digital music and FM radio emerged.

New Competitor rise in the market

DECLINE PHASEYear Model Name Features1979 Sony Walkman TPS-L2 The original Walkman cassette player portable1985 Sony Walkman WM-101 This was the first Walkman that came with rechargeable batteries.

It was much thinner than its predecessors.

1987 Sony TCD-D3 In 1987, Sony launched digital magnetic tape also known as the digital audio tape which was added to this model in 1990. In addition to playing audio the Sony TCD-D3 Walkman could also record audio.

1992 Sony Walkman MZ-1 Sony Walkman MZ-1 was the first Walkman with a MiniDisc1996 Sony Walkman MZ-E50 Within four years of the launch of its first MiniDisc version Sony

launched a slimmed-down compact version of the Walkman MiniDisc format support.

1999 Sony CD Walkman D-E01 Use of CD’S Started2003 Sony Walkman NW-MS70D The market hit the first Walkman, which had 256 MB of flash

memory and a removable memory card.

2005 Sony Walkman NW-E505/507

And this is a real curiosity: the Walkman, which in terms of design was inspired by a bottle of perfume. It had a small space for data (512 MB).

DECLINE PHASE

In October of 2001, Apple announced the iPod. Both mp3s and

broadband were finally widely available

Sony's flagship MP3 Walkman from 2004 came with 20 GB of storage

and offered 30 hours of continuous playback. But at $400, it was too pricey to compete seriously with

the iPod ($299).

to shut down its loss making

products from its product line and

invest more in profit making product.

finally after the sale of 200 million cassette player Sony retired the classic cassette tape

Walkman line in 2010.

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