The Sony Group started in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita and is a huge, multination conglomerate that has a share in almost all forms of entertainment in the 21st century. Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of televisions, games consoles, video, communication (along with Ericsson) and information technology. Sony Group is further split up into Sony Corporation (which is known as Sony Electronics in the USA), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Ericsson and Sony Financial Holdings.
Sony Group generated an estimated USD$88.714 billion, a vast amount of revenue. Sony also have approximately 180,000 employees worldwide, whether that be in Sony’s factories or Sony’s commercial stores that are placed in countries worldwide.
Sony have always been at the forefront of modern technology. Their Sony Walkman in the late 1980s, and up until the introduction of media players, held top spot of the easiest, most accesible music player around. Nowadays, they have their highly expensive Playstation 3 which has sold reasonably well, but below the expected sales.
However, among Sony’s success, their have been many flaws. These have mostly been due to awful advertising. One advertising campaign in the Netherlands was viewed as racist. Another example is when Sony put up a false blog about their Playstation Portable (PSP) in which they invented a teenager that advertised the PSP. There have also been many problems with the batteries of their Sony Vaio laptops. A couple in Japan had their laptop battery burst into flames, with Sony eventually being sued for damages. Next, there’s the case of the Playstation 3’s controllers originally not having rumble features. This was due to a case in which a company by the name of Immersion Corporation, based in San Jose, California, sued Sony because they claimed that Sony stole their idea of the rumble features of the controller. Immersion Corp. were awarded with USD$82 million in compensation.
All in all, Sony have provided the world with high-quality, high-cost electronics. In the current economic climate, will we see their sales fall further? Only time will tell.
