Sony Walkman – Death of a Product

It debuted in July 1979 and has sold 220 million across the world. At the time, it was the first portable music player and was revolutionary. Having music we can take anywhere is a lifestyle essential these days for many and it’s thanks to the Sony Walkman which was the pioneer in this field. Sony has announced it will stop manufacturing the groundbreaking Walkman cassette player 30 years after it was introduced to the market.

Fans of Sony Walkman, of which there are still The Sony Walkman cassette player is a good many, had predicted its demise when technological example of a product that has gone through all progress brought the dawn of the CD, then stages of the product life cycle. The product life minidisc devices and finally the iPod – which has cycle is the path of a product from its introduction just celebrated its ninth anniversary. The public onto the market, to its eventual disappearance started to recognise that audiocassettes were from the market. not the medium of the future. They were prone to getting chewed up and bulky to carry. In fact, getting hold of cassette tapes is hard these days – UK mega electrical retailer Dixons doesn’t list either cassette Walkmans or cassette tapes on its site.

The various stages of the product lifecycle are:- Other products such as Coca Cola and Pepsi • Development – the product is being have a constant level of sales over a number of researched and developed ready to be decades. Both modes of cola have been in introduced to the market maturity for some years. • Introduction – the product is launched onto It is important to remember that it is not possible the market to predict when maturity or decline will begin for • Growth – sales increase significantly as the a product. If sales start to fall, firms should not product takes off react too quickly by thinking their product has • Maturity – sales level off gone into decline, reducing their marketing • Decline – sales begin to decline activities and withdrawing the product from the The Walkman itself has not declined since market. This will seal the fate of the product extension strategies meant CD versions and even if there are other reasons for a fall in sales. MP3 versions have been introduced. However, It is clear that Sony has not fallen into that trap. the life cycle of different products varies from Sony stood by the Walkman cassette player product to product. The life cycle of the long after the introduction of technology that Walkman cassette player was 30 years. Other rendered it outdated. Maybe it was out of products have lasted significantly less than this respect to a product that brought such a dramatic and others significantly longer. Consequently, the change in how we listen to music. R.I.P. shape of the product life cycle in diagram form will vary from product to product. A fad product would hold a steep sloped growth stage, a short maturity stage, and a steep sloped decline stage.