Demand for Walkmans soars

Sony will increase production of its digital Walkman to keep pace with demand for the music player, which the company is promoting as an alternative to Apple’s iPod.

Production of the NetWalkman NW-HD1 will be raised at a plant northeast of Tokyo, Takao Yuhara, executive vice president, said in an interview yesterday.

The new Walkman, which carries a 20-gigabyte hard drive, is sold out in some stores, Mr Yuhara said at Sony’s Tokyo headquarters.