It's official: Sony Walkman is now history - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Multinational conglomerate Sony has stopped the manufacturing and distribution of the cassette Walkman after retiring the floppy disk in March. Now considered to be another obsolete technology, the cassette Walkman was the first low-cost, portable music player. The final batch was shipped to Japanese retailers in April, according to IT Media. Once sold, new cassette Walkmans will no longer be available through the manufacturer, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The first generation Walkman that was called the Soundabout in the US , and the Stowaway in the UK ) was released on July 1, 1979 in Japan . Although successful, it sold only 3000 units in its first month. Sony managed to sell some 200 million iterations of the cassette Walkman over the product line's 30-year career. The decline of the cassette Walkman is attributed primarily to the explosive popularity of CD players in the 90s.