Jumping the S-Curve

1	HIGH PERFORMANCE:THE BUSINESS OF JUMPING S-CURVES

FOR MANY DECADES, Zenith truly was—as its name suggests—at the top. Founded in 1918 and incorporated in 1923 as the Zenith Radio Corporation, the company introduced the world’s first portable radio in 1924. Two decades later, with the advent of television, the company successfully shifted its focus. It introduced its first black-and-white sets in 1948 and later developed the first hand-held remote control in 1956 and a new standard for color television, the Chromacolor tube, in 1969.¹ By 1975, the company led the industry with a 24 percent share of the market for color televisions in the United States, 5 percent more than its nearest and only strong competitor at the time.² Throughout this ...