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Six months after Tamiya returned from Latin America, Morita gave him a new assignment. The assignment was to establish a subsidiary company in Hawaii that operated independently of SONAM.
At the time, Sony's business in Hawaii was being conducted through a dealership, which in turn was handled by SONAM's office in Los Angeles. In May 1968, Tamiya landed alone at Honolulu Airport with $50,000 in operation funds. In approximately one month, Tamiya found office space and a warehouse and hired the minimum number of employees necessary to start the operation. Tamiya founded the company with six employees, including two Japanese staff. This is how Sony Hawaii Inc. was born.
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Sony Hawaii's opening ceremony in 1968
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The $50,000 was spent quickly, and Tamiya began to use his salary to pay utility bills and employees' salaries for the first two or three months. The products had not yet arrived, so money was spent while none was coming in.
Products finally arrived in August. Sony Hawaii had already established agreements with a number of dealers, and once the products were distributed, revenues began to come in. At the time,  products meant only transistor radios. Sony Hawaii could not sell tape recorders due to an exclusive dealership agreement Sony had with Super Scope, which covered the U.S. mainland and Hawaii, and color television sets were not yet available. The first order Sony Hawaii received was for two radios and two stereos.
In 1969, a year after Sony Hawaii was founded, Sony of Canada Ltd. joined the Sony family. Established in Toronto, Sony Canada originally dealt in professional-use VTRs and other equipment. Shigeru Inagaki was appointed its president and Tsunoda appointed its vice president. After tireless negotiations with Morita and lawyer Edward Rosiny, Sony Canada expanded in the mid 70s through a merger with Gendis Inc., a dealer with a long history of selling Sony's home-use audio products. The new Sony Canada (50% Sony-owned and 50% Gendis-owned) was established under president Albert Cohen. In 1995, Sony Canada became a wholly-owned Sony subsidiary.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, preparations to establish sales companies in Europe were underway. Sony Overseas S.A. (SOSA), established in Zurich in December 1960, oversaw all European accounts as well as European finance and foreign exchange related operations. Komatsu, Koriyama and Suzuki founded SOSA. While Nobuyuki Idei, Masakazu Namiki, Yasumasa Mizushima, and Suehiro Nakamura were stationed in cities throughout Europe as sales representatives. Namiki was in the UK, Mizushima in Germany, and Idei in France. The three had a friendly competition among themselves when selling transistor radios and Trinitron TVs. Their shared goal was to counteract the traditionally negative image that Japanese products held at the time. They emphasized to customers that Sony products were of high quality and worth the higher average prices. Sony products were 10% more expensive than European brands and 20% more expensive in Germany.
They were also seeking to establish local sales companies in Europe. Sony was preparing to sever ties with its distributors and establish companies that would function as wholesale companies and sell directly to retail outlets in major European countries. Sony's aspirations were high: to increase direct sales, boost brand-image, and build a servicing network.
Morita always said, Sales is a form of communication. To persuade consumers that Sony products improve their lives, we must have our own sales channels. Morita wanted to get as close to consumers as possible, whether in Japan or abroad.
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