Ran across this doing research on Sony for the Secrets of Branding ( TV Series to air BBC and CCTV late in year) that production company will be at my home filming mid June.  Sony by 1969 quietly was Aiwa's majority shareholder effectively allowing Sony by 1979 when Walkman was released to have pre-planed products and marketing of Aiwa to not directly compete in many model areas.  This gave Sony a double edged sword allowing fast dominance of large market share right from start in Walkman markets worldwide.

My father used this exact strategy in the 50's. A self taught engineer/inventor and entrepeneur owned a tool forging business and in the 1950's bought out his primary competition Kennedy Tool but kept the buy out quiet (purchase not done under Dads company or his name) so he used the other company to position each in pricing points and products to gain majority of tire changing tool market.  Here is excerpt from History of Company my Dad started in 1938 about this interesting marketing strategy.  The company Ken Tool is still in business today although my Dad sold it in 1966 ( I was 9 yrs old) it has gone through several corp. owners yet is still successful today.  Full company history at this link actually interesting

reading :

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/98...s-release---Ken-Tool

Sony began investing in Aiwa much earlier than 1969 and by 1969 became the majority shareholder. General public was kept totally unaware of this.   Aiwa by the late 70's had tremendous market share in sound electronics with excellent quality perceived by public.  They had moved strongly into Middle East then in 70's into Europe and N. America.  In 1980 AIWA opened a factory in S. Wales UK to further its strength and lessen dependence on changing value of Yen to European currency and US Dollar.  I believe Sony used AIWA during the Walkman years to produce Walkman that had different pricing points and features with unique designs often with color where Sony was often very conservative with its visual design of Walkman.  I believe Sony also used Aiwa to introduce new products and/or features in case they failed it would not tarnish the image of already powerful and KING of the Walkman market Sony.  In this way it appears Sony manipulated the market having a majority of market share(Sony & Aiwa) in 80's with using the Aiwa brand to offer product lines and pricing not so much in competition directly with Sony's model line.  A brilliant twist on Branding and market share control/expansion.  During the 80's the general world wide public was not knowledgeable of fact that Sony was controlling Aiwa.  I believe it was same concept as my father used in 50's to not just buy  the competition but to use the ownership in controlling products offered, pricing and market share/distributorship.   In essence a MONOPOLY in the early Walkman market.  Thus Sony was well in control of Aiwa AND more importantly design/mfg. of products by 1979/1980 to position Aiwa products uniquely to not so much direct compete with Sony but compliment and create segments of the new exploding Walkman market. Sony took excellent advantage of Aiwa's quality image and strong market presence.   As we all know AIWA became a First early leader in the Walkman recording segment where early in the 80's few Sony models made were player/recorders.  While Sony's first early players were PLAY ONLY Aiwa jumped out front with the TP-S30 first player being for its time a quality recording machine also.  Interesting that Sony had the technology to build a Walkman in the early 70's from the TC-55 mono play/record unit by adding stereo circuit.   Sony's executives had in the 70's from my research felt the public would not buy a player only machine and more so said public would not wear larger headphones that were stereo over both ears in public.  HOW WRONG they were as we know how fast the public bought player only Stereo machines and happily wore those larger stereo headphones which helped actually the creation of that personal space again out in public when in tight spaces with others.  Sony early player/recorder combo Walkman (NOT play only which Sony were high quality mid to high priced generally) were generally of lower pricing/quality than AIWA play/recorder Walkman which by Sony masterful marketing and excellent product engineering in Aiwa set Aiwa up as the powerhouse on the recording side until Sony made push into professional market segment with the D6 and D6C where Aiwa did not really offer products ( again by design of Sony IMO).  All done by smart marketing to control the two Brands and products separately to the public yet in reality masterfully controlled by Sony behind the scenes.  Although in the USA the image that Japanese products were cheap of lower quality Sony had built up in the 70's a strong quality image with electronics like TV's , home stereo equipment and other sound equipment. Aiwa had a high quality image already established also in 70's in home stereo equipment especially dominance in the reel to reel and cassette recording areas.  Sony used this established quality image in electronics in marketing programs/advertising to distancing themselves with Aiwa from the many inexpensive lower quality items exported worldwide at time from Japan and other Asian countries.  The quality and build  especially of the early 80's Sony and Aiwa Walkman (excluding the more price focused players appearing 83 and more later) were at the top of the Walkman market compared to all but a few mfg. such as Panasonic and Sanyo the two other major market share holders in very early years.   Since in the first 4 years the top four sellers of Walkman were all Japanese making very good quality players ( many still working today even with only belt replacement a Beyond Impressive achievement .  The American public after using Walkman 3-4 years of Japanese mfg. that worked flawlessly even when badly treated no longer saw Japanese products at least certain electronic items such as Walkman as low quality cheap price items.  The first few Sony and Aiwa Walkman had highest quality for time assembly and mostly all METAL components purposed to establish these two companies and their Walkman products to be of high quality , dependable and not cheaply priced yet of very high value for price paid.

Following From WIKIPEDIA

Operations of Aiwa by Sony after 2000[edit]

The company slid towards bankruptcy until it was purchased by competitor Sony Corporation. As of October 1, 2002, Aiwa ceased to be a separate company and became a wholly owned division of Sony. The company retained a logo from the mid-1990s which was used for a very short time.

Sony's reasoning for acquiring the company is unclear, other than that it was already a shareholder in Aiwa Corporation. However, Aiwa was eligible for a tax refund^{[citation needed]} in Japan for fiscal year 2002, which offset the dropping figures in Sony's financial report for fiscal years 2002 and 2003. In January 2003, Sony announced the rebranding and relaunch of Aiwa as a "youth focused, PC-centric" electronics brand. A new logo was presented to the world's media along with a statement of Sony's intention to invest in and "revitalize" the Aiwa brand.

The direction proposed was to capitalize on the growing trend among personal-computer-literate teenagers and young adults to use their PCs for all forms of entertainment (television, films, music, chat), an area in which Sony itself was struggling primarily due to the heavy copyright protections it imposed upon its products^{[citation needed]}.

Since 2004, however, Sony seemingly began rolling back its support for the Aiwa brand, and by 2005 Aiwa products remained on sale in only selected territories around the globe. In 2006, Aiwa products were discontinued and no longer sold in the market.

As of March 2013, the Aiwa website still existed to provide customer-support telephone numbers for some territories and regions, but it also contained many broken links and blank pages. In other regions, such as Europe, it redirected to a page on the Sony website stating that the Aiwa website had closed. The last apparent update to the website was in June 2008.^[1]

DETAILED AIWA COMPANY HISTORY

http://www.fundinguniverse.com...aiwa-co-ltd-history/

AIWA REST IN PEACE  WE LOVED YOU.  

I am curious what other members think of my analysis above.  More so what model Walkman can you all think of that were unique to Aiwa and did not have any exact direct competition with Sony early on.  I believe as the 80's came to end and 90's began Sony pushed its designs and mechanics more directly into Aiwa's Walkman until most Aiwa's looked like the Sony similar model.  Where in the 80's Aiwa was a design powerhouse using unique mechanics/electronics not found in Sony Walkman generally.  Yet all the while Sony masterfully was engineering separably Aiwa's components/Walkman.  Sad in the 90's Sony seemed to take the original engineering staff and creativity of Aiwa and no longer allowed those early Aiwa loyal engineers to create on their own.

Of interesting note in 1964 AIWA was the FIRST JAPANESE company to introduce a cassette recorder.  Aiwa's recorders, decks and players were the main core products they manufactured through the 70's  thus their engineering staff was at the very forefront in the cassette recording area in the early years.  It makes sense that Sony already a larger more diverse corporation decided to invest in and eventually own AIWA due to its early recording lead with cassette technology. 

Thanks John for all that info.

I agree with you that seemed that SONY and AIWA tried to not to compete directly many years. For example: the HS-G08 and J08 had not a direct competitor from SONY those years as they were miles ahead any other planet on earth.

The PX101 (AIWA's top player in '87) could not compete directly with the Boodo Khan (SONY's top player that year) because they were in a different league. But they were their respective top players.

PX101 has logic control; DD100, manual

PX101 is thin; DD100 is thick

PX101 has remote control, autoreverse...; DD100 has Direct Drive, simply

PX101 has parametric DSL; DD100, the powerful DOL

PX101 has Dolby C; DD100 only B.

MAny differences to consider them true competitors; just real competitors because they really were at that time...

And there are many other examples.

Always excellent to get your comments Hugo.  Thank you for the details on differences for some models that Sony by ownership of Aiwa designed these models to not compete directly with each other but allow greater market control without the public knowing Sony controlled Aiwa's products/designs and global markets sold to.

Thanks for that insight,very interesting! I have always been an aiwa fan when it comes to tape and feel slightly aggrieved towards sony at the moment LOL. On a side Thought i wonder how much of Sony is owned by Samsung now? What goes around !!! as they say. 

 P.s. Long live my newly refreshed px101 ....

i agree that SONY have a hidden agenda to stifle competition brought by AIWA excellent product. I have an AIWA personal cassete bought in 1985 and i love its stereo sound comparable to CD which is still prohibitive with its high price. SONY bought AIWA to kill it, period.

Interesting read JohnEdward, i loved AIWA personals.

Fantastic thread, a lot of interesting info on a fascinating story of  market manipulation.  Thanks JohnEdward 

a very interesting look at the backstage of marketing politics, and an extraordinarily informative post --as usual!  thanks so much JE