Sony Group Corp. said Tuesday that Nobuyuki Idei, its former chairman and CEO who led the Japanese giant's push into the digital network business, has died of liver failure. He was 84.
In addition to enhancing Sony's presence in the digital and communications fields, he also focused on the entertainment business, such as movies, music and game consoles, laying the foundation for its current operations.
He died last Thursday at a hospital in Tokyo.
Idei joined Sony in 1960, becoming president in 1995 and CEO in 1998. He served as both chairman and chief executive from 2000 to 2005.
He stepped down as chairman and CEO amid lackluster sales in its appliance business, making headlines for naming Howard Stringer as his successor at a time when it was still rare for a Japanese company to be led by a non-Japanese CEO.
Idei also contributed to the advancement of the internet environment in Japan, having been appointed to head the government's IT strategy council in 2000.
"He laid the foundations for Japan's world-leading broadband network," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said of Idei at a press conference.
"Those founding notions have been passed down even to the current administration's digital policies."
Under Idei's tenure as CEO, the conglomerate launched its Vaio-brand personal computers and domestic internet service provider So-net. It also ventured into online-based banking services and the nonlife insurance business.
But after its earlier success with sales of bulky CRT televisions, Sony was slow to transition to flat screens and was outpaced amid intense competition with South Korean and other overseas rival manufacturers.
Company stocks plunged in 2003 in what was referred to as the "Sony shock," and sluggish growth for much of the following decade led Sony to focus on corporate restructuring initiatives.
Following his departure from Sony, Idei continued to be involved in the business sector. In 2006, he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as vice chairman of the Japan Business Federation, also known as Keidanren.
"During his seven years as CEO from 1998, Mr. Idei made an immense contribution to Sony's evolution as a global company," Sony Group CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said in a statement.
"In particular, the prescience and foresight with which he predicted the impact of the internet, and engaged proactively with digitalization across Sony, amazes me to this day," he added.
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