Walkman

Walkman
	Walkman logo since 2000
	Left to right from top: an (original) cassette Walkman (1980s), a CD Walkman (2001), an MD Walkman (1998), a digital Walkman (2011)
Manufacturer	Sony Corporation
Type	Portable audio players and recorders
Lifespan	July 1, 1979 – present
Units sold	385 million (all editions, as of March 31, 2009)
Related	List of Sony Walkman products;

Walkman, stylised as WALKMAN (ウォークマン), is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Japanese company Sony since 1979. The original Walkman started out as a portable cassette player^[3]^[4] and the brand was later extended to serve most of Sony's portable audio devices; since 2011 it consists exclusively of digital flash memory players. The current flagship product as of 2022 is the WM1ZM2 player.^[5]

Walkman cassette players were very popular during the 1980s, which led to "walkman" becoming an unofficial term for personal stereos of any producer or brand.^[6] 220 million cassette-type Walkmen were sold by the end of production in 2010;^[7] including digital Walkman devices such as DAT, MiniDisc, CD (originally Discman then renamed the CD Walkman) and memory-type media players,^[8]^[9] it has sold approximately 400 million at this time.^[7] The Walkman brand has also been applied to transistor radios, and Sony Ericsson mobile phones.

^ Haire, Meaghan (1 July 2009). "A Brief History of The Walkman". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
^ "Sony Japan – タイムカプセル vol.20 そして、その名は世界共通語になった". Sony.
^ Bull, Michael (2006). "Investigating the Culture of Mobile Listening: From Walkman to iPod". Consuming Music Together. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. 35: 131–149. doi:10.1007/1-4020-4097-0_7. ISBN 1-4020-4031-8.
^ Du Gay, Paul (1997). Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman. SAGE Publications. ISBN 9780761954026.
^ "Sony Announces Two New Premium High-End Digital Audio Players". Forbes.
^ Batey, Mark (2016), Brand Meaning: Meaning, Myth and Mystique in Today's Brands (Second ed.), Routledge, p. 140
^ ^a ^b 株式会社インプレス (22 October 2010). "ソニー、カセット型ウォークマンの生産・販売終了". AV Watch (in Japanese). Retrieved 8 August 2023.
^ "Sony's modern take on the iconic Walkman". The Hindu BusinessLine. 18 March 2020. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
^ "Sony History". Sony Electronics Inc. Retrieved 17 May 2020.

[1] Haire, Meaghan (1 July 2009). "A Brief History of The Walkman". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 8 March 2023.

[2] "Sony Japan – タイムカプセル vol.20 そして、その名は世界共通語になった". Sony.

[3] Bull, Michael (2006). "Investigating the Culture of Mobile Listening: From Walkman to iPod". Consuming Music Together. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. 35: 131–149. doi:10.1007/1-4020-4097-0_7. ISBN 1-4020-4031-8.

[4] Du Gay, Paul (1997). Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman. SAGE Publications. ISBN 9780761954026.

[5] "Sony Announces Two New Premium High-End Digital Audio Players". Forbes.

[Batey16_140-6] Batey, Mark (2016), Brand Meaning: Meaning, Myth and Mystique in Today's Brands (Second ed.), Routledge, p. 140

[:2-7] 株式会社インプレス (22 October 2010). "ソニー、カセット型ウォークマンの生産・販売終了". AV Watch (in Japanese). Retrieved 8 August 2023.

[8] "Sony's modern take on the iconic Walkman". The Hindu BusinessLine. 18 March 2020. Retrieved 17 May 2020.

[9] "Sony History". Sony Electronics Inc. Retrieved 17 May 2020.

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