Toshiba Quits The Laptop Business

Toshiba, a giant tech company, once known for its satellite range of laptops, has announced its exit from the laptop business.

In a statement to the press, the company confirmed having transferred its shares to a rival, Sharp, in finalisation of its exit plan.

“Toshiba Corporation hereby announces that it has transferred the 19.9 per cent of the outstanding shares in Dynabook that it held to Sharp Corporation. As a result of this transfer, Dynabook has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sharp,” the company said in a statement.

The company earlier sold the 80.1 per cent stake to Sharp in 2018.  The remaining 19.9 per cent stake of its Dynabook laptop brand has now been sold to Sharp for an official exit of the laptop business.

Toshiba entered the market for laptops in 1985 and would later introduce its ‘Satellite’ range of laptops to take on IBM’s ‘ThinkPad’ series. The company outsourced its laptop production until 2015, manufacturing newer models at its facility in China.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Toshiba was among the top PC manufacturers, but would later face stiff competition following the growth of Lenovo, HP, and Dell, which made it tough for Toshiba to continue its success in the market.

Toshiba’s share of the PC market had quickly dwindled from its 2011 peak of 17.7 million PCs sold to a dismal 1.4 million by 2017.