Akio Morita, Sony Founder And Visionary, Dies At 78

TOKYO - Akio Morita, the entrepreneur, engineer and savvy salesman who helped give new meaning to the words "Made in Japan," died today, Sony Corp. said. He was 78.

Mr. Morita had been in failing health since a stroke in 1993. He died at a Tokyo hospital this morning of pneumonia, said Sony spokesman Aldo Liguori.

Mr. Morita co-founded Sony in a bombed-out department store after World War II. He was the last of a generation of Japanese industrialists that included carmaker Soichiro Honda and electronics rival Konosuke Matsushita.

Under Mr. Morita's guidance, Sony was instrumental in changing Japan's image from a maker of slipshod products to a world leader in high-quality automobiles and electronics. In the process, his company became a multibillion-dollar conglomerate.

A native of the western Japanese city of Nagoya, Mr. Morita retired as Sony's chairman in 1994, a year after he suffered a stroke that left him in a wheelchair. He stayed on as honorary chairman and Norio Ohga was appointed his successor.

The tanned, snowy-haired Mr. Morita, who took up water-skiing in his 60s, also pioneered new behavior for corporate Japan. He pushed his engineers to take risks with new products and criticized lavishly paid American executives.

Mr. Morita caused a stir in 1989 by co-authoring "The Japan That Can Say `No' " with current Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, then refusing to authorize an English translation. In it, Mr. Morita bashed U.S. corporate culture as overindulgent.

He also warned that America must revitalize its electronics industry by investing in research and development.

In the late 1980s, Mr. Morita called for many of the economic reforms now being carried out by Japan's government. However, he reportedly declined an offer to become foreign minister in August 1993.

Even without Mr. Morita at the helm, Sony continues to lead the world in electronics and computer entertainment. The company recently launched a new attack on rival gamemakers by announcing next year's launch of an improved version of its popular PlayStation system.

But all is not rosy at Sony.

Japan's rapidly rising yen has hurt the export-oriented company's earnings, with net profit plunging 55 percent in the three months ending June 30.

Sony was born in 1946 when Mr. Morita, the oldest son of a rice-wine brewer, joined former Japanese navy colleague Masaru Ibuka, a fellow engineer, to start a business repairing radios on a borrowed $500.

Using old parts and ingenuity in Japan's harsh postwar economy, they produced Japan's first magnetic recording tape and tape recorder in 1950.

They made Japan's first transistors in 1954 after convincing government industrial planners to allow their upstart company to buy the rights to the American device. They made Japan's first transistor radio in 1955.

Ibuka died in 1997 at age 89.

Sony made the world's first all-transistor television in 1960 and the first home videotape recorder in 1965.

With Mr. Morita as president of Sony's U.S. subsidiary, the company in 1970 became the first Japanese firm to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1972, Sony became one of the first Japanese companies to build a U.S. factory.

Sony began in the 1980s selling its Walkman personal stereo cassette players, the company's most famous and successful product. In his autobiography, "Made in Japan," Mr. Morita said he told engineers to make Walkmans despite the lack of market research.

"We don't believe in market research for a new product unknown to the public. So we never do any," he said.

Mr. Morita also was ready to acknowledge his occasional blunders. His best-known gaffe was with VCRs. When the market for videocassette recorders was in its infancy in the early 1980s, Sony pushed its Beta recording format but lost to competitors who used the more popular VHS standard.

Mr. Morita held honorary law degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Williams College in the United States. He also was given France's Legion of Honor and in 1993 was knighted by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.