101 Facts About Sony Corporation

1.

Sony Group Corporation, commonly known as Sony and stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Konan, Minato, Tokyo, Japan.

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2.

Sony Corporation has a weak tie to the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group corporate group, the successor to the Mitsui keiretsu.

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3.

Sony Corporation is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange with an additional listing in the form of American depositary receipts listed in the New York Stock Exchange, and was ranked 88th on the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list.

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4.

Sony Corporation occasionally used the acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name.

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5.

Sony Corporation filled many positions in this manner, and inspired other Japanese companies to do the same.

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6.

Sony Corporation began a life insurance company in 1979, one of its many peripheral businesses.

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7.

Sony Corporation encouraged the development of the compact disc in the 1970s and 1980s, and of the PlayStation in the early 1990s.

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8.

Sony Corporation hoped to sell off peripheral business and focus the company again on electronics.

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9.

In February 2014, Sony announced the sale of its Vaio PC division to a new corporation owned by investment fund Japan Industrial Partners and spinning its TV division into its own corporation as to make it more nimble to turn the unit around from past losses totaling $7.

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10.

In 2017, Sony Corporation sold its lithium-ion battery business to Murata Manufacturing.

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11.

Sony Corporation 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, while its success in the early years owes to a smooth capitalization on the Compact Cassette standard introduced by Philips, with which Sony Corporation went on to enjoy a decades-long technological relationship in various areas.

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12.

Sony Corporation has introduced several of the most popular recording formats, including the 3.

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13.

Sony Corporation introduced U-matic, the world's first videocassette format, in 1971, but the standard was unpopular for domestic use due to the high price.

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14.

Sony Corporation was involved in the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when they were marketing the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC.

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15.

In 1985, Sony Corporation launched their Handycam products and the Video8 format.

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16.

Sony Corporation held a patent for its proprietary Trinitron until 1996.

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17.

Sony Corporation introduced the Triluminos Display, the company's proprietary color reproduction enhancing technology, in 2004, featured in the world's first LED-backlit LCD televisions.

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18.

In 2013, Sony Corporation released a new line of televisions with an improved version of the technology, which incorporated quantum dots in the backlight system.

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19.

Sony Corporation used the Compact Cassette format in many of its tape recorders and players, including the Walkman, the world's first portable music player.

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20.

Sony Corporation introduced the MiniDisc format in 1992 as an alternative to Philips DCC or Digital Compact Cassette and as a successor to the Compact Cassette.

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21.

Since the introduction of MiniDisc, Sony Corporation has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against the more widely used MP3.

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22.

SDDS was solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony Corporation never intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS.

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23.

Sony Corporation contributed it as part of the Android Open Source Project starting from Android 8.

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24.

Sony Corporation demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in 1977 and soon joined hands with Philips, another major contender for the storage technology, to establish a worldwide standard.

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25.

In 1984, Sony Corporation launched the Discman series, an expansion of the Walkman brand to portable CD players.

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26.

Sony Corporation began to improve performance and capacity of the novel format.

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27.

Philips and Sony Corporation abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with only one modification.

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28.

Sony Corporation was one of the leading developers of the Blu-ray optical disc format, the newest standard for disc-based content delivery.

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29.

Sony Corporation held more than a 70 percent share of the market when it decided to pull the plug on the format in 2010.

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30.

In 1998, Sony Corporation launched the Memory Stick format, the flash memory cards for use in Sony Corporation lines of digital cameras and portable music players.

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31.

Sony Corporation has made updates to the Memory Stick format with Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Micro.

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32.

Sony Corporation has released USB flash drive products, branded under the Micro Vault line.

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33.

Sony Corporation introduced FeliCa, a contactless IC card technology primarily used in contactless payment, as a result of the company's joint development and commercialization of Near-Field Communication with Philips.

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34.

In 2019, Sony Corporation launched the ELTRES, the company's proprietary low-power wide-area wireless communication standard.

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35.

Best known for its electronic products, Sony Corporation offers a wide variety of product lines in many areas.

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36.

Sony Corporation is the electronics business unit of the Sony Group.

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37.

In 1979, Sony Corporation released the world's first portable music player, the Walkman, bundled with the MDL-3L2 headphones.

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38.

In 1999 Sony Corporation's first portable digital audio players were introduced; one was a player using Memory Stick flash storage created by the Walkman division, and the other was a smaller pen-sized player with embedded flash storage created by the Vaio division; both accompanied with Sony Corporation's OpenMG copyright protection technology and PC software for music transfer.

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39.

Sony Corporation is a major audio products manufacturer and one of the active noise control technology leaders.

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40.

Sony Corporation stopped production of Trinitron for most markets, but continued producing sets for markets such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and China.

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41.

Sony Corporation discontinued its series of Trinitron computer monitors in 2005.

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42.

Sony Corporation discontinued the last Trinitron-based television set in the US in early 2007.

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43.

Sony Corporation used the LCD WEGA name for its LCD TVs until summer 2005.

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44.

BRAVIA is an in-house brand owned by Sony Corporation which produces high-definition LCD televisions, projection TVs and front projectors, home cinemas and the BRAVIA home theatre range.

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45.

In 2006, Sony Corporation lost its decades-long No 1 market share in the global television market.

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46.

From 2011, Sony started restructuring of its loss-making television business, mainly by downsizing business units and outsourcing the manufacturing of display panels to the companies like Sharp Corporation, LG Display, and Samsung Electronics.

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47.

Sony Corporation's small-sized LCD business subsidiary and medium-to-large-sized OLED display business unit were spun off and became part of Japan Display and JOLED, respectively.

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48.

Also, Sony Corporation has sold a range of tapes, discs, recorders and players for videocassette, DVD, and Blu-ray formats for decades.

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49.

Sony Corporation demonstrated a prototype of the Sony Corporation Mavica in 1981 and released it for the consumer market in 1988.

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50.

Sony Corporation entered the market for digital single-lens reflex cameras in 2006 when it acquired the camera business of Konica Minolta.

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51.

Sony Corporation rebranded the company's line of cameras as its Alpha line.

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52.

Sony Corporation is the world's third largest manufacturer of the cameras, behind Canon and Nikon respectively.

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53.

In 2010, Sony Corporation introduced their first mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras, which were the NEX-3 and the NEX-5.

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54.

Sony Corporation entered again into the global computer market under the new VAIO brand, began in 1996.

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55.

Sony Corporation faced considerable controversy when some of its laptop batteries exploded and caught fire in 2006, resulting in the largest computer-related recall to that point in history.

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56.

On 4 February 2014, Sony Corporation announced that it would sell its VAIO PC business due to poor sales and Japanese company Japan Industrial Partners will purchase the VAIO brand, with the deal finalized by the end of March 2014.

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57.

Sony Corporation has targeted medical, healthcare and biotechnology business as a growth sector in the future.

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58.

Sony Corporation acquired iCyt Mission Technology, Inc, a manufacturer of flow cytometers, in 2010 and Micronics, Inc, a developer of microfluidics-based diagnostic tools, in 2011.

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59.

On 28 September 2012, Olympus and Sony Corporation announced that the two companies will establish a joint venture to develop new surgical endoscopes with 4K resolution and 3D capability.

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60.

In 2000, Sony Corporation was a marginal player in the mobile phone market with a share of less than 1 percent.

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61.

In 2001, Sony Corporation entered into a joint venture with Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, forming Sony Corporation Ericsson Mobile Communications.

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62.

Sony Corporation distinguished itself with multimedia-capable mobile phones, which included features such as cameras.

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63.

From 2008 to 2010, amid a global recession, Sony Corporation Ericsson slashed its workforce by several thousand.

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64.

In 2009, Sony Corporation Ericsson was the fourth-largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world .

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65.

Sony Corporation Mobile focuses exclusively on the smartphone market under the Xperia brand.

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66.

Since the late 1990s, Sony Corporation has released numerous consumer robots, including dog-shaped robots called AIBO, a music playing robot called Rolly, and a humanoid robot called QRIO.

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67.

In 2015, Sony Corporation partnered with an autonomous driving startup ZMP INC.

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68.

At the CES 2021, Sony Corporation unveiled a drone with the brand Airpeak, the smallest of its kind that can incorporate a Sony Corporation Alpha camera according to the company, entering the drone business on its own for the first time.

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69.

Sony Corporation has commanded a dominant share in the charge-coupled device market.

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70.

In 2020, Sony Corporation has launched the first intelligent vision sensors with AI edge computing capabilies.

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71.

Originally, Nintendo requested Sony Corporation to develop an add-on for its SNES that would play Compact Discs.

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72.

In 1991 Sony Corporation announced the add-on, as well as a dedicated console known as the "Play Station".

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73.

Sony Corporation followed up with the PlayStation 2 in 2000, which was even more successful.

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74.

Sony Corporation released the PlayStation 3, a high-definition console, in 2006.

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75.

Sony Corporation extended the brand to the portable games market in 2004 with the PlayStation Portable .

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76.

Sony Corporation developed the Universal Media Disc optical disc medium for use on the PlayStation Portable.

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77.

Sony Corporation released a disc-less version of its PlayStation Portable, the PSP Go, in 2009.

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78.

Sony Corporation went on to release its second portable video game system, PlayStation Vita, in 2011 and 2012.

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79.

Sony Corporation launched its fourth console, the PlayStation 4, on 15 November 2013, which as of 31 December 2017 has sold 73.

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80.

In 2012, Sony Corporation rolled most of its consumer content services into the Sony Corporation Entertainment Network, the predecessor of PlayStation Network.

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81.

Sony Corporation has produced many notable movie franchises, including Spider-Man, The Karate Kid and Men in Black.

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82.

Sony Corporation entered the television and film production market when it acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1989 for $3.

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83.

In 2006 Sony Corporation started using ARccOS Protection on some of their film DVDs, but later issued a recall.

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84.

In late 2014, Sony Corporation Pictures became the target of a hack attack from a clandestine group called Guardians of Peace, weeks before releasing the anti-North Korean comedy film The Interview.

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85.

In 2005, Sony Corporation BMG faced a copy protection scandal, because its music CDs had installed malware on users' computers that was posing a security risk to affected customers.

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86.

In 2018, Sony Corporation bought the rest of the shares in the publisher, making it a wholly owned subsidiary.

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87.

Since then, through group-wide and international ventures, Sony Corporation has solidified its position in the industry, elevating the business to what is called the "fourth pillar of its entertainment portfolio" according to The Nikkei.

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88.

Company behind the commercialization of lithium-ion battery, Sony Corporation had been exploring the possibility to manufacture the batteries for electric vehicles.

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89.

In 2014, Sony Corporation participated within NRG Energy eVgo Ready for Electric Vehicle program, for EV charging parking lots.

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90.

In January 2020, Sony Corporation unveiled a concept electric car at the Consumer Electronics Show, named Vision-S, designed in collaboration with components manufacturer Magna International.

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91.

At the occasion, Sony Corporation stated its goal of developing technology for the automotive sector, especially concerning autonomous driving, sensors, and in-car entertainment.

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92.

Sony Corporation is a kabushiki gaisha registered to the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan and the New York Stock Exchange for overseas trading.

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93.

Sony Corporation 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 devastating Japanese earthquake of 2011.

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94.

Sony Corporation faced three consecutive years of losses leading up to 2011.

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95.

In January 2013, Sony Corporation announced it was selling its US headquarters building for $1.

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96.

In November 2018, Sony Corporation posted its earning report for the second quarter showing it has lost about US$480 million in the mobile phone division, prompting another round of downsizing in the unit, including the closure of a manufacturing plant and halving of its workforce.

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97.

In November 2011, Sony Corporation was ranked ninth in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics.

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98.

Sony Corporation fell from its earlier 11th-place ranking due to Greenpeace's claims that Sony Corporation had double standards in their waste policies.

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99.

Sony Corporation has said that they have signed on to have about 75 percent of their Sony Corporation Building running on geothermal power.

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100.

The "Sony Take Back Recycling Program" allow consumers to recycle the electronics products that they buy from Sony by taking them to eCycle drop-off points around the U S The company has developed a biobattery that runs on sugars and carbohydrates that works similarly to the way living creatures work.

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101.

In 2000, Sony Corporation faced criticism for a document entitled "NGO Strategy" that was leaked to the press.

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