Columbia Pictures

Sony (In katakana: ソニー ; In Chinese: 新力 this writing has the meaning of new power) is a consumer electronics corporation based in Tokyo, Japan. It was founded on May 7, 1946 as the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering with about 20 employees. Their first consumer product, in the late 1940s, was a rice boiler. As it grew into a major international corporation, Sony acquired other companies with longer histories, including Columbia Records (the oldest continuously produced brand name in recorded sound, dating back to 1888).

The name was coined by founder Akio Morita to convey "sound" and "sonny" for youth and energy.

In 1988, Sony acquired CBS (Columbia) Records Group from CBS. It was renamed "Sony Music Entertainment".

In 2000, Sony had sales of US $63 billion and 189,700 employees. Sony acquired Aiwa corporation in 2002.

Notable products

• PlayStation
• PlayStation2
• Walkman
• Minidisc
• Laserdisc players
• Betamax
• Aibo
• Qrio
• VAIO
• CLIE

Film production & theaters

• Columbia/Tri-Star, including:
• Columbia Pictures
• Tri-Star Pictures
• Jim Henson Productions (partial interest)
• Mandalay Entertainment (partial interest)
• Phoenix Pictures (partial interest)
• Sony Pictures Classics
• Sony Pictures Entertainment
• Columbia-Tri Star Home Video
• Sony/Lowes Theaters
• Magic Johnson Theaters
• Loews - Star Theaters
  • Metreon in San Francisco

Related articles

• Sony Ericsson
• List of Sony products
• Time shifting

External links

• The Sony website
• Sony Ericsson
• Snopes article on the name
• History of Columbia Records/Sony Music Entertainment

Referenced By