Sony Corporation

Sony began life in 1946 rebuilding radios that had had the shortwave bands removed so that overseas "propaganda" could not be received. Soon they were building a shortwave add on for radios. From these humble beginnings they expanded rapidly, trying to invent a rice cooker that used the moisture content of the rice to control the cooker - it failed. Another failure was a heated cushion where the wires broke and threatened to catch fire.

The company developed close ties with NHK, Japans national broadcaster, and the Education Department. This led to the "tapcorder", and the devlopment of recording tape.

From these humble beginnings Sony became synonymous with high quality consumer and professional equipment. 

On one of their many trips to the United States, co-founder Morita visited Western Electric with the aim of securing the licence for the new transistors. 

Although, the company was still small, and lacked the necessary capital and equipment, a deal was struck. This led to furious research back in Japan. Finally, the production of transistors commenced, printed circuits were perfected, and a radio design was settled on. The genius was to produce different coils to match the inconsistences in production where the transistor was yielding very low numbers. Matching coils to transistors meant that production was becoming profitable for the first time. As it happened Regency produced the first transistor radio for Christmas of 1954.

The company had almost signed a deal with the Bulova watch company for 100, 000 units, but had a lucky escape as not only were they unwilling to have them branded Bulova, the prototypes melted. The Sony TR54 "United Nations Building" was not to be.

The redesigned Sony TR55 became the second transistor radio, and more importantly the first that was designed and fully manufactured by a single company.

Sony were on their way.

Over the next 60 years Sony has continued to make radios, however they no longer make the high-end, multi-band receivers of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Today they make good quality DAB+ radios, it seems that high quality radios are not their forte, and their efforts are concentrated in the still and video camera market where they are one of the two manufactures of optical sensors, the other being Canon.

Sony still produce professional cinema and television equipment - mostly cameras, as well as televisions and associated audio gear. 

Their biggest income comes from their music and cinema/television studios, as well as their Morita component manufacture.