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Sony's decision to shift focus from the domestic to the international market took seed during Morita's 1953 visit to Philips.  Holland resembles Japan in many ways. If a company like Philips can succeed in the international market, there's no reason why Totsuko can't, he thought. Boosted by this convicton, he directed Sony to begin concentrating its energies on producing exports for the international market.
Their initial goal was to build up overseas markets which would yield 50% of their gross sales. Thanks to sales of transistor radios and the diligent marketing efforts of Morita and his staff, this goal became possible within seven years.
Next came step two. Morita took an assertive stand. Until now we have merely exported overseas. From now on, however, we must go to the heart of the matter. Overseas marketing is an overseas business. I believe that Sony can become stronger by setting up overseas offices. Offices had already been set up in New York, Hong Kong and Zurich for this purpose. A radio factory had also been established in Shannon, Ireland.
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 | | The early days of Sony Corporation of America. |
Then in February 1960, Sony Corporation of America (SONAM) was established to oversee Sony's marketing activities in the United States by doing business with Americans like an American company. This was something that no other Japanese electronics corporation had dared to attempt. Many doubted that a company specializing in transistor radios and other electronics products, as opposed to a general trading company, could deal successfully without an agent's assistance.
Morita was well aware of the risks. In light of Sony's current situation, we may be acting a little prematurely. But a business that doesn't take advantage of its opportunities doesn't deserve to be called an enterprise. We may be overextending ourselves, but the time to act is now. We at Sony don't believe in shying away from the hardship that comes along with a good opportunity, and we ask all our employees to uphold this spirit, explained Morita to his employees.
Sony's maxim---to take advantage of every opportunity that comes along---is underlied by the conviction that the more difficult and trying the work, the sweeter the reward. This concept applies not only to engineering, but to marketing as well, and is typically Sony.
Indeed, as Morita said, Sony had come upon a prime opportunity. In September 1957, before SONAM's establishment, Sony had contracted two companies, Agrod and Superscope, to act as its marketing agents in the U.S. Agrod mainly sold Sony's transistor radios and microphones, and Superscope handled the tape recorder.
Along with Vistavision and Cinema-scope, Superscope was known for its wide screen movie system. The initial meeting between Sony and Superscope was fascinating. Unlike the Cinema-scope system, which employed several cameras to achieve a wide screen effect, Superscope used a simple cylindrical lens to double the size of the projection. Because of its pure simplicity, Japanese movie theaters were clamoring to get a hold of it, and the owners received large patent royalties.
Morita first met the patent holders, the Tushinsky brothers, during one of their periodic visits to Japan to collect royalties. Whenever they visited, they would use their hotel room at the Nikkatsu Hotel in Ginza as an office. One day Morita went to collect the fee for the tape recorder which the Tushinsky brothers had bought. He was dumbfounded. There were literally mountains of money piled up everywhere in sight. In the days of foreign exchange restrictions, they could not take more than a specified amount out of the country. This, at any rate, was Morita's first encounter with the Tushinsky brothers of Superscope.
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