Sony Seeks to Close Music-Player Gap Behind Apple

TOKYO -- Sony Corp.'s once-dominant personal-music-player business is still struggling against Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod despite the introduction of new models over the past year, Sony President Ryoji Chubachi said.

Sony's Walkman digital music players failed to meet their initial target for the past year, Chubachi told reporters. He declined to describe a strategy to bounce back over the rest of the year. "We miscalculated with the Walkman," he said.

A recovery in the music-player business would be an important step toward putting Sony back on a path to growth after years of disappointing results. Although Sony's other central products -- such as televisions and digital cameras -- are regaining strength, Chubachi said, the Walkman was a critical product "to reinforce Sony's resurrection."

Personal music players are the smallest part of Sony's electronics unit, but they have huge symbolic value because the company pioneered the market 27 years ago with its Walkman portable cassette players.

Apple seized the initiative in late 2001, when it released its first iPod music player. An attraction of the iPod is its accompanying iTunes software, which enables users to easily organize their music and tap an online music store with more than 3 million songs. Apple's devices have achieved an iconic status with millions of fans.

Sony has been fighting to regain its old status with digital music players of its own, but it faces an uphill battle. The company in 2004 established a service called Connect that was meant to compete with iTunes but has failed to take off. Sony also released Walkman digital music players boasting long-lasting batteries. Still, in the first four months of 2006, Apple had a 77 percent share of the U.S. portable flash-memory-player market, according to market-research firm NPD Group Inc. of Port Washington, N.Y. Sony had less than 10 percent.

This year's winter holiday season will be a vital opportunity for Sony to gain market share. Chubachi said the company is planning products that are different from Apple's lineup -- but he declined to give further details.

"We want to come out with products that are Sony-like," he said. "Some parts may be similar [to the iPod], where that makes sense. But we want them to be products that are uniquely Sony."

Sony's latest digital music players, launched in Japan in early June, indicate that the company may try to compete on look and battery life. The devices are small, and like Apple's Shuffle model of iPod, they can be plugged directly into computers. The Sony devices store a similar amount of music and are similar in size and weight to the Shuffle. Sony also offers a version in the same size as the iPod Shuffle, but with more memory, and the players come in a greater variety of colors with a sleek design. They also boast a long-lasting battery that can support as much as three hours of play after a three-minute charge.

Chubachi said initial sales in Japan had been better than expected. Sony plans to introduce them outside Japan but has given no details.