The day Sony’s founder refused to become a supplier to a US brand

The story of global electronics giant Sony could have been very different had its owner agreed to an offer from a US manufacturer in its early years.

In 1955, nine years after Morita Akio co-founded Sony's forerunner together with Ibuka Masaru, the company received a gigantic offer for the world's second transistor radio it developed. A major US watch manufacturer wanted to buy 100,000 units of the transistor radio.

Given the scale of their business, Morita was initially impressed with the offer. But his excitement faded hearing the conditions of the deal. The US manufacturer insisted that they would not sell the radios under the unknown brand Sony, rather the products would be labelled with their own name.

Ibuka and the Tokyo management team thought he should accept it. But Morita, standing firm, declined the order. The buyer company scoffed at the decision, boasting of their 50-year history. Morita retorted, "In fifty years' time we will have made the name Sony as famous as yours. So it's no, thank you."

Given Sony's global brand recognition and reach today, it is clear Morita had the last laugh.

Morita, at 25, initially oversaw the marketing and administration of a small company named Tōkyō Tsūshin Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) he founded in 1946, a year after the end of the Second World War. His co-founder, 38-year-old Ibuka Masaru, had developed a succession of pioneering products.

Born on 26 January 1921, Morita Akio turned out to be a business legend in the postwar economy of Japan. This year marks the birth centenary of the business legend who gained the nickname "Mr Sony" and came to personify Japan's remarkable postwar economy. By 1971, Morita made it to the cover photo of the US Time magazine.

A visionary name choice

The name "Sony" was the brainchild of Morita. He was adamant that the company name should be easy for people outside Japan to pronounce. He knew that neither Tōkyō Tsūshin Kōgyō nor its Japanese abbreviation, Tōtsūkō, would do.

Morita and Ibuka struggled to find a suitable name and finally settled on "Sony" in 1955.

The name Sony was officially adopted three years later. It was registered in katakana, a Japanese syllabary which is a component of the Japanese writing system.

Although Morita shared a friendship with Ibuka, senior to him by 13 years, they had different beliefs. When they discussed business, onlookers could be led to thinking the pair were fighting. Morita believed it was pointless if everyone held the same opinion.

Today in Japan, many companies have names in katakana rather than kanji and Romanised logos. But at the time, Morita faced opposition even from within the company in choosing the name Sony. They were truly ahead of the times.

In 1999, a television programme reflecting on industrial achievements of the twentieth century named a long list of American products that had helped shape the global economy of the modern age. Sony's video tape recorder was the only non-American product included in the list.

Ibuka's toy becomes the Walkman

Morita had the quality to recognise potential hit products. Portable headphone cassette player Walkman is a perfect example.

In 1978, Sony's honorary chairman Ibuka requested the developers to customise a portable cassette player for him so that he can enjoy music in stereo when flying overseas on a business trip. The developer team modified an existing product, a recording device known as the Pressman, removing the recording function to create a playback-only model and adding stereo sound.

After returning from a trip, Ibuka suggested that Morita try out his new toy. Morita was impressed with the audio quality, and his intuition told him this would be a hit. He immediately moved to commercialise the device.

Many within the company voiced concerns about a cassette player that lacked a recording function, and retail stores also expressed doubts. But Morita pressed on, and the first Walkman became a big seller soon after its launch in July 1979, taking the world by storm.

New York debut

In 1962, Sony opened a showroom on New York's Fifth Avenue as Morita believed that demand for Sony products would be spurred by a prominent presence in the US commercial city, visited by people from all over the world. A part of him also dreamed of brandishing the Japanese flag in this major arena of the business world.

In 1963, he moved with his family to New York, desiring to live among Americans in order to truly understand them. At the time, it was unfathomable in Japan for a company vice-president to relocate overseas, yet he left for a planned two-year posting.

Controversial opinions

Although Morita shared a friendship with Ibuka, senior to him by 13 years, they had different beliefs. When they discussed business, onlookers could be led to thinking the pair were fighting. Morita believed it was pointless if everyone held the same opinion.

In his 1966 book Gakureki muyō ron (Never Mind School Records), Morita expressed his belief that people should not be judged on their academic background, nor on attributes such as their age, gender, or nationality. Based on this, Sony encouraged a culture of open debate unfettered by hierarchy.

Morita also drew criticism within Japan by lambasting the Japanese business model and also appeared to be controversial abroad through his write-ups.

Amiable and magnanimous

According to an interviewer, he was a very amiable person. Despite being the chairman of the company, he wore the same gray uniform as the employees.

This man was contending with world heavyweights on an equal footing, but he was not intimidating. If anything, he had an air of humility. Many hoped that he would become the next chairman of Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation), but, in his usual manner, he spurned the idea as ludicrous.

Morita came from a distinguished family that had produced sake in Chita, Aichi Prefecture, for over 300 years. Prior to the war, his family had its own home tennis court, automobile, electric refrigerator, and even a gramophone. Although raised with the manners and education typical of a wealthy, respected family, he was outgoing and magnanimous, while at the same time polite and cultivated.

In 1993, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and after a six-year struggle, passed away on October 3, 1999, aged 78.

This article is a retelling of an article by Mori Kazuo originally published on Nippon.com