Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka wanted to listen to opera on business trips. He just needed something lighter to lug around an airport and on a plane.
Sony’s TC-D5 model, created in 1978, allowed him to listen to music through headphones in stereo. But at approximately 3.7 pounds and the size of a textbook, it was too heavy for Ibuka’s liking, according to Sony’s website.
Before Ibuka’s next trip to the U.S., Sony engineers modified the company’s compact Pressman recorder by removing its recording function and adding stereo playback.
Ibuka showed it to fellow co-founder Akio Morita, who believed pairing the product with lightweight headphones would appeal to young music lovers even if they couldn’t record.
“You can take your music out on the town with you,” he told young Sony employees in February of 1979.
The product that became the Walkman was beginning to take shape. Because he was targeting young buyers, Morita wanted it on store shelves before summer break. Sony executives were worried about the deadline but approved of Morita’s tight timeline. It would be priced at 33,000 yen to mark Sony’s 33rd anniversary.
The Walkman was released in Japan on July 1. Sony employees and college students jogged around Yoyogi Park demonstrating the product and members of the media listened through headphones prior to the launch. But just 3,000 units were sold during the first month.
Sony’s advertising and domestic sales teams got aggressive and brought the Walkman directly to the customer. Employees spent an entire day riding Tokyo’s Yamanote train line wearing Walkmans so passengers could see the device in use. They also offered demonstrations at university sporting events and festivals.
Soon, stores were selling out and Sony had trouble keeping up with the demand.
Sony’s sales team was concerned about the name “Walkman” when taking the product overseas. It wasn’t proper English. In the U.S., for instance, it was initially called the Soundabout.
But when traveling abroad, Morita said people were already asking for the Walkman.
“Everybody already knows it as the Walkman. Let’s keep the name,” Morita said, making it official during a U.S. sales convention in April of 1980.
Sony sold more than 400 million Walkman players in various formats through 2019, paving the way for portable listening devices like the Discman and iPod.
And the Sony’s sales team’s worries went unfounded: in 1986, “Walkman” was listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.
