Ongoing History Daily: Into cassettes? Good luck finding a cassette player

For some people, cassettes are enjoying a tiny comeback. A few artists release albums on cassette as well as digitally and on CD and vinyl, but not many of these cassettes are heard because there are precious few cassette players available.

Sony sold 200 million Walkmans after it debuted in 1979, but production ceased in 2010. Panasonic, Toshiba, Bose, and all the other major manufacturers don’t have cassette players anymore.

In 1994, the industry sold 25 million combo radio/cassette players. When it stopped tracking such sales in 2016, the number of units shipped had fallen to about 650,000. But you can still find new players.

A Chinese company called Fiio offers a very simple bare-bones Walkman-style player for around $100. A Paris company called We Are Rewind offers something similar, although their cassette players also offer Bluetooth connectivity. They sold somewhere around 40,000 units in 2024.