The iPod’s big brother turns 30
Happy Birthday to the Walkman! 30 years ago this week, the Sony Walkman became the hottest “must have” gadget for music lovers. If you had one, you were part of the IN crowd. They were so popular that it could take as long as a month to get one. These days the IPod is the hot thing, but the Walkman laid the groundwork.
With the Walkman, Sony started a personal music revolution for how people enjoy music. Until we had the Walkman, people had to carry around big Boom Boxes and blast the music for everyone to hear. Remember that? Not fun. With the Walkman, you could have great sound that you can listen to at anytime….at work or play.
The first Walkman cost around $200 in the U.S. This was a hefty price tag in 1979, but the Walkman was still sold out in a month. Interestingly enough, a vintage Walkman is for sale on eBay for $210 right now.
Since its initial launch, Sony has sold 385,000,000 units. Sony sold 7 million Walkman digital music players in their last fiscal year. This was up from up from 4.5 million the previous year. The current forecast down to 6.3 million units and is related primarily to the down economy.
The Walkman had some very cool features for its time…..the most popular of which was dual headphone jacks with separate volume controls…….with an IPod, you need to use a splitter, but not the Walkman. The Walkman also had a “hotline” button that turned down the music so that you could talk to someone. Once the button is released, then the music goes back to the previous volume. Pretty handy feature.
You may not realize that they Walkman started out being branded as the Soundabout. Sony felt that the Walkman name wasn’t proper English and might not be well received. However, in 1980, the name Walkman was the official global brand.
Believe it or not, the Walkman was the first digital personal music player. The digital version was launched in December 2000, with the iPod being launched in 2001. Unfortunately for Sony, the Walkman was based on the proprietary ATRAC format and this slowed adoption. Apple also has a proprietary format, however the iPod was supported by iTunes, which was really the one/two punch for knocking out the Walkman. The iPod became the standard quickly since it was easy to use, music was readily available for $1 per song and Apple does a great job with design.
Happy Birthday Walkman. I wonder what we will all be listening to in the next 30 years!