10 Facts About Walkman

Walkman, stylised as WALKMAN, is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Sony since 1979.

The original Walkman was a portable cassette player and its popularity made "walkman" an unofficial term for personal stereos of any producer or brand.

Walkman asked executive deputy president Norio Ohga to design a playback-only stereo version optimized for headphone use.

Walkman was followed by a series of international releases; as overseas sales companies objected to the wasei-eigo name, it was sold under several names, including Sound-about in the United States, Freestyle in Australia and Sweden, and Stowaway in the UK.

The first ultra-compact "cassette-size" Walkman was introduced in 1983, model WM-20, with a telescopic case.

Related searches

Marketing of the Walkman helped introduce the idea of "Japanese-ness" into global culture, synonymous with miniaturization and high-technology.

Walkman has been cited to not only change people's relationship to music but technology, due to its "solitary" and "personal" nature, as users were listening to their own music of choice rather than through a radio.

In German-speaking countries, the use of "Walkman" became generic, meaning a personal stereo of any make, to a degree that the Austrian Supreme Court of Justice ruled in 2002 that Sony could not prevent others from using the term "Walkman" to describe similar goods.

Large statue of a Sports Walkman FM was erected in Tokyo's Ginza district in 2019 in celebration of the 40th anniversary.

Additionally, Walkman-branded mobile phones were made by the Sony Ericsson joint venture.