jump to navigation search for other uses see sony disambiguation . sony corporation sony s current logo used since 1972 sony s headquarters complex at sony city in minato tokyo native name romanized name son kabushiki gaisha type public kabushiki gaisha conglomerate traded as nyse sne tyo 6758 industry computer software finance telecommunications mass media entertainment founded 7 may 1946 ; 70 years ago 1946 05 07 tokyo japan 1 founder masaru ibuka akio morita headquarters minato tokyo japan number of locations 14 2016 area served worldwide key people osamu nagayama chairman kazuo hirai president ceo products consumer electronics semiconductors video games computer hardware telecommunications equipment services financial services insurance banking credit finance advertising agency revenue 8.1 t 2 2016 operating income 294.2 b 2 2016 net income 147.8 b 2 2016 total assets 16.673 t 2 2016 total equity 2.463 t 2 2016 number of employees 125.3 k 1 2016 subsidiaries list of subsidiaries website sony.net sony corporation son kabushiki gaisha commonly referred to as sony and stylized as sony so ni is a japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in k nan minato tokyo japan . 3 its diversified business includes consumer and professional electronics gaming entertainment and financial services . 2 the company is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets . 4 sony is ranked 116th on the 2015 list of fortune global 500 . 5 sony corporation is the electronics business unit and the parent company of the sony group which is engaged in business through its four operating components electronics video games network services and medical business motion pictures music and financial services . 6 7 8 these make sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world . sony s principal business operations include sony corporation sony pictures entertainment sony interactive entertainment sony music entertainment sony mobile formerly sony ericsson and sony financial . sony is among the worldwide top 20 semiconductor sales leaders and as of 2013 the fourth largest television manufacturer in the world after samsung electronics lg electronics and tcl . 9 the sony group son gur pu is a japan based corporate group primarily focused on the electronics such as av it products and components game such as the playstation entertainment such as motion pictures and music and financial services such as insurance and banking sectors . the group consists of sony corporation holding and electronics sony interactive entertainment games sony pictures entertainment motion pictures sony music entertainment music sony atv music publishing music publishing sony financial holdings financial services and others . the company s current slogan is be moved . their former slogans were make.believe 2009 2014 like.no.other 2005 2009 and it s a sony 1980 2002 . 10 sony has a weak tie to the smfg sumitomo mitsui financial group keiretsu citation needed the successor to the mitsui keiretsu . contents 1 history 1.1 tokyo tsushin kogyo 1.2 name 1.3 globalization 2 formats and technologies 2.1 video recording 2.2 audio recording 2.3 audio encoding 2.4 optical storage 2.5 disk storage 2.6 flash memory 3 business units 3.1 electronics 3.1.1 sony corporation 3.1.1.1 audio 3.1.1.2 computing 3.1.1.3 photography & videography 3.1.1.4 video 3.1.1.5 semiconductor and components 3.1.1.6 medical related business 3.1.2 sony mobile communications 3.1.3 sony interactive entertainment 3.1.4 sony creative software 3.2 electric vehicles and batteries 3.3 entertainment 3.3.1 sony pictures entertainment 3.3.2 sony music entertainment 3.3.3 sony atv music publishing 3.4 finance 3.4.1 sony financial services 3.5 mobile payments 4 corporate information 4.1 finances 4.2 environmental record 4.3 community engagement 4.3.1 eye see project 4.3.2 south africa mobile library project 4.3.3 the sony canada charitable foundation 4.3.4 sony foundation and you can 4.3.5 open planet ideas crowdsourcing project 4.3.6 street football stadium project 5 see also 6 references 7 further reading 8 external links history edit main article history of sony masaru ibuka the co founder of sony tokyo tsushin kogyo edit sony began in the wake of world war ii . in 1946 masaru ibuka started an electronics shop in a department store building in tokyo . the company had 530 in capital and a total of eight employees . 11 in the following year he was joined by his colleague clarification needed akio morita and they founded a company called tokyo tsushin kogyo 12 13 tokyo telecommunications engineering corporation . the company built japan s first tape recorder called the type g. 12 in 1958 the company changed its name to sony . name edit when tokyo tsushin kogyo was looking for a romanized name to use to market themselves they strongly considered using their initials ttk . the primary reason they did not is that the railway company tokyo kyuko was known as ttk . 12 the company occasionally used the acronym totsuko in japan but during his visit to the united states morita discovered that americans had trouble pronouncing that name . another early name that was tried out for a while was tokyo teletech until akio morita discovered that there was an american company already using teletech as a brand name . 14 the name sony was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words . one was the latin word sonus which is the root of sonic and sound and the other was sonny a common slang term used in 1950s america to call a boy . 4 in the 1950s japan sonny boys was a loan word into japanese which connoted smart and presentable young men which sony founders akio morita and masaru ibuka considered themselves to be . 4 the first sony branded product the tr 55 transistor radio appeared in 1955 but the company name did not change to sony until january 1958 . 15 at the time of the change it was extremely unusual for a japanese company to use roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji . the move was not without opposition ttk s principal bank at the time mitsui had strong feelings about the name . they pushed for a name such as sony electronic industries or sony teletech . akio morita was firm however as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry . eventually both ibuka and mitsui bank s chairman gave their approval . 12 globalization edit according to schiffer sony s tr 63 radio cracked open the u.s. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics . by the mid 1950s american teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100 000 units in 1955 to 5 million units by the end of 1968 . citation needed sony co founders akio morita magijstu yamagucci sun wu zhu akio morita and sony zhu founded sony corporation of america in 1960 . 11 in the process he was struck by the mobility of employees between american companies which was unheard of in japan at that time . 11 when he returned to japan he encouraged experienced middle aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider joining sony . 11 the company filled many positions in this manner and inspired other japanese companies to do the same . 11 moreover sony played a major role in the development of japan as a powerful exporter during the 1960s 1970s and 1980s . 16 it also helped to significantly improve american perceptions of made in japan products . 17 known for its production quality sony was able to charge above market prices for its consumer electronics and resisted lowering prices . 17 in 1971 masaru ibuka handed the position of president over to his co founder akio morita . sony began a life insurance company in 1979 one of its many peripheral businesses . amid a global recession in the early 1980s electronics sales dropped and the company was forced to cut prices . 17 sony s profits fell sharply . it s over for sony one analyst concluded . the company s best days are behind it . 17 around that time norio ohga took up the role of president . he encouraged the development of the compact disc in the 1970s and 1980s and of the playstation in the early 1990s . ohga went on to purchase cbs records in 1988 and columbia pictures in 1989 greatly expanding sony s media presence . ohga would succeed morita as chief executive officer in 1989 . citation needed under the vision of co founder akio morita 18 and his successors the company had aggressively expanded into new businesses . 16 part of its motivation for doing so was the pursuit of convergence linking film music and digital electronics via the internet . 16 this expansion proved unrewarding and unprofitable 16 threatening sony s ability to charge a premium on its products 18 as well as its brand name . 18 in 2005 howard stringer replaced nobuyuki idei as chief executive officer marking the first time that a foreigner had run a major japanese electronics firm . stringer helped to reinvigorate the company s struggling media businesses encouraging blockbusters such as spider man while cutting 9 000 jobs . 16 he hoped to sell off peripheral business and focus the company again on electronics . 18 furthermore he aimed to increase cooperation between business units 18 which he described as silos operating in isolation from one another . 19 in a bid to provide a unified brand for its global operations sony introduced a slogan known as make.believe in 2009 . citation needed despite some successes the company faced continued struggles in the mid to late 2000s . 16 in 2012 kazuo hirai was promoted to president and ceo replacing sir howard stringer . shortly thereafter hirai outlined his company wide initiative named one sony to revive sony from years of financial losses and bureaucratic management structure which proved difficult for former ceo stringer to accomplish partly due to differences in business culture and native languages between stringer and some of sony s japanese divisions and subsidiaries . hirai outlined three major areas of focus for sony s electronics business which include imaging technology gaming and mobile technology as well as a focus on reducing the major losses from the television business . 20 sony store in markville shopping centre in 2014 in february 2014 sony announced the sale of its vaio pc division to a new corporation owned by investment fund japan industrial partners and spinning its tv division into its own corporation as to make it more nimble to turn the unit around from past losses totaling 7.8 billion over a decade . 21 later that month they announced that they would be closing 20 stores . 22 in april the company announced that they would be selling 9.5 million shares in square enix roughly 8.2 percent of the game company s total shares in a deal worth approximately 48 million . 23 in may 2014 the company announced it was forming two joint ventures with shanghai oriental pearl group to manufacture and market sony s playstation games consoles and associated software in china . 24 formats and technologies edit further information list of sony trademarks sony has historically been notable for creating its own in house standards for new recording and storage technologies instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies . sony either alone or with partners has introduced several of the most popular recording formats including the floppy disk compact disc and blu ray disc . video recording edit the company launched the betamax videocassette recording format in 1975 . sony became embroiled in the infamous videotape format war of the early 1980s when sony was marketing the betamax system for video cassette recorders against the vhs format developed by jvc . in the end vhs gained critical mass in the marketbase and became the worldwide standard for consumer vcrs . while betamax