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Sony's New York showroom was opened on October 1, 1962, just prior to the sales debut of the micro-TV. The showroom was situated in an ideal location, the most fashionable section of 5th Avenue, Manhattan's main thoroughfare.
In September, an old building had finally been torn down to make way for the showroom. This marked the start of the rush construction job --- after all, there was less than a month until the opening date. It was a difficult construction job. In downtown Manhattan, where space is at a premium and mere inches separate one building from the next, it was impossible to build a temporary outdoor structure. The cement was mixed and poured on the building site itself, and they worked until they had finally pushed themselves into a corner. In other words, the construction site and the building were one and the same.
And unlike Japan, the builder did not subcontract interior work. The electrician, plasterer, wallpaper hanger and carpet layer had to be contracted separately. The showroom was in utter confusion, with each contractor working at his own pace. It was impossible to tell the overall progress of the work.
The confusion was further aggravated by the language gap between the Japanese and the Americans. Although some members of the Sony staff could understand English, that did not mean that their English was understandable to Americans. In one instance, a member of the design department of Sony head office in Tokyo came to offer support for the construction and suggested that the wallpaper hanger use  biniru. No one could understand what he was talking about. Thinking his pronunciation was not right, he tried accenting the first syllable but to no avail. Then he emphasized the second syllable. The Americans still did not understand him. Finally in desperation he brought a piece of vinyl for the workers to see. Zis, zis! he reiterated. The workers responded by exaggeratedly gesticulating and exclaiming, Oh.... vinyl! Naturally, mispronouncing V as B would make it impossible for any American to understand. Such chaos escalated as the opening day drew closer.
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 | | The opening of the New York showroom on 5th Avenue. |
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At last the opening day arrived. With over 400 guests, including the Consul General of New York, crowding the opening ceremony, the 170-square-meter showroom was in utter pandemonium.
Naturally the TV5-303, which was soon to go on sale, grabbed all the attention. The micro-television's popularity was not limited to opening day. From the next day on, an average of 7,000 people crowded the showroom for a glimpse of the revolutionary television. The showroom was deluged with cries of When will it go on sale? When the TV5-303 did go on sale on October 4, and it sold out in a flash.
In no time the micro-TV had created a boom in the US. It was by far a greater success than Morita and the others had initially anticipated. Tokyo was shipping them by sea as fast as they came off the assembly line, but this did not begin to meet the overwhelming American demand. Sony Corporation of America called Tokyo daily requesting them to speed up production and delivery. Not only retailers, but our walk-in customers are pressing to get a hold of the sets.
Still, Sony could not afford to revel in its good fortune. Less than Six months later, other companies had begun to imitate the micro-TV. Among them, Hayakawa Electric had already begun sending samples to the US market. The time was now or never for Sony to keep its competition down and lead the world market with its micro-TVs. On November 7, Sony chartered a Pan American plane to deliver the products to the US.
Thanks to the micro-TV, Sony Corporation of America (SONAM) was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Until then, Sony's most profitable product, the tape recorder, was being handled by Superscope. The main product which SONAM marketed independently was the transistor radio, and its sales were only comparable to those of the Sony Shoji branch in Nagoya.
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