Japan done with Walkman
January 26, 2006
Tokyo - The Walkman would no longer be made in Japan, Sony announced yesterday, shifting the last production of the portable jukebox to China and Malaysia.
Sony would close its production line of the MD (MiniDisc) and CD player Walkman at its Saitama Tech factory north of Tokyo, by March next year, said spokesperson Saori Takahashi.
The factory produced Sony's first Walkman tape cassette players in 1979, which revolutionised the way the world listened to music at the start of the music video era. Sony, which has been struggling in the face of Apple Computer's popular iPod, will cut 200 jobs at the plant.
"The decision was based on our company's idea that we will concentrate on production in the best possible places in the world," Takahashi said.
Sony, like other Japanese companies, has increasingly relied on other Asian nations, particularly China, as hubs for low-cost manufacturing.
"The Walkman has long been a symbolic and strategic product for Sony, but it has now turned into just one item that should be produced overseas due to labour costs," said Masayuki Hoshina, an analyst at Okasan Research Institute.
"Japanese manufacturers will further differentiate high value-added products and low value-added ones."
Sony separately said it would also end production of cathode-ray tube displays in the US this year. It would close its San Diego plant in June and lay off 400 employees there while ending production at its factory in Pittsburgh in February with 300 job losses.
It would focus on its production of cathode-ray tube displays in Singapore and China, Takahashi said. In September last year, Howard Stringer, Sony's first foreign boss, announced a major overhaul of the business, including 10 000 job cuts.
Sony had increasingly tried to repackage the Walkman. Last year, for example, it tried to target a younger crowd with a Walkman that looked like jelly beans.
Sony has forecast shipments of the Walkman series at 13.85 million units for the year to March 2006, up from 11.94 million the previous fiscal year.
Last month, Moody's downgraded its ratings on Sony, warning that the Japanese electronics giant might need more time to recover from its sales slump.
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