Toshiba
Toshiba Corporation (株式会社東芝, Kabushikigaisha Tōshiba, English: /təˈʃiːbə, tɒ-, toʊ-/[3]) is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors, hard disk drives (HDD), printers, batteries, lighting, as well as IT solutions such as quantum cryptography which has been in development at Cambridge Research Laboratory, Toshiba Europe, located in the United Kingdom, now being commercialised.[4][5][6] It was one of the biggest manufacturers of personal computers, consumer electronics, home appliances, and medical equipment. As a semiconductor company and the inventor of flash memory, Toshiba had been one of the top 10 in the chip industry until its flash memory unit was spun off as Toshiba Memory, later Kioxia, in the late 2010s.[7][8]
Native name
株式会社東芝
Kabushikigaisha Tōshiba
Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd. (English name 1939–1979; Japanese name 1939–1984)
TYO: 6502
11 July 1875
- Tanaka Hisashige (for the Tanaka Seisakusho branch)
- Takayasu Mitsui (for the Shibuara Seisakusho branch)
- Miyoshi Shōichi and Fujioka Ichisuke (for the Hakunetsusha/Tokyo Denki branch)
Worldwide
¥158.94 billion (FY2021)[1]
¥194.65 billion (FY2021)[1]
¥3,734.52 billion (FY2021)[1]
¥1,366.66 billion (FY2021)[1]
116,224 (2022)[2]
- Toshiba Data Corporation
- Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation
- Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation
- Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corporation
- Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation
- Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corporation
- Toshiba Plant Systems & Services Corporation
- Toshiba Trading Inc.
- Toshiba America, Inc.
- Toshiba Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.
- Toshiba (Australia) Pty Limited.
- Toshiba (China) Co., Ltd.
- Toshiba Europe Ltd.
- Toshiba Gulf FZE
The Toshiba name is derived from its former name, Tokyo Shibaura Denki K.K. (Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd) which in turn was a 1939 merger between Shibaura Seisaku-sho (founded in 1875) and Tokyo Denki (founded in 1890). The company name was officially changed to Toshiba Corporation in 1978. It was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange from 1949 to 2023 where it was a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX 100 indices (leaving both in August 2018, but returned to the latter in 2021), and the Nagoya Stock Exchange.
A technology company with a long history and sprawling businesses, Toshiba is a household name in Japan and has long been viewed as a symbol of the country's technological prowess. Its reputation has since been affected following an accounting scandal in 2015 and the bankruptcy of subsidiary energy company Westinghouse in 2017, after which it was forced to shed a number of underperforming businesses, essentially eliminating the company's century-long presence in consumer markets.[9][10][11]
Toshiba announced on 12 November 2021 that it would split into three separate companies, respectively focusing on infrastructure, electronic devices, and all other remaining assets; the latter would retain the Toshiba name. It expected to complete the plan by March 2024,[12] but the plan was challenged by stockholders, and at an extraordinary general meeting on 24 March 2022, they rejected the plan. They also rejected an alternative plan put forward by a large institutional investor that would have had the company search for buyers among private equity firms.[13]
In March 2023, however, the company announced it had accepted a ¥2 trillion ($15 billion) buyout offer from a consortium led by Japan Industrial Partners (JIP), a Tokyo-based private equity firm.[14] On September 27, after the public offering was completed in the middle of that month, it was reported that it would be transferred to a new parent company, TBJH.[15][16]
On December 22, 2023, it was announced that JIP's purchase of the company had been completed.[17] This occurs two days after being delisted.
History[edit]
Tanaka Seisakusho[edit]
Tanaka Seisakusho (田中製作所, Tanaka Engineering Works) was the first company established by Tanaka Hisashige (1799–1881), one of the most original and productive inventor-engineers during the Tokugawa / Edo period. Established on 11 July 1875,[18][19] it was the first Japanese company to manufacture telegraph equipment. It also manufactured switches, and miscellaneous electrical and communications equipment.
The company was inherited by Tanaka's adopted son, and later became half of the present Toshiba company. Several people who worked at Tanaka Seisakusho or who received Tanaka's guidance at a Kubusho (Ministry of Industries) factory later became pioneers themselves. These included Miyoshi Shōichi who helped Fujioka Ichisuke make the first power generator in Japan and to establish a company, Hakunetsusha to make bulbs; Oki Kibatarō, the founder of the present Oki Denki (Oki Electric Industry); and Ishiguro Keizaburō, a co-founder of the present Anritsu.[20]
After the demise of the founder in 1881 Tanaka Seisakusho became partly owned by General Electric and expanded into the production of torpedoes and mines at the request of the Imperial Japanese Navy, to become one of the largest manufacturing companies of the time. However, as the Navy started to use competitive bids and then build its own works, the demand decreased substantially and the company started to lose money. The main creditor to the company, Mitsui Bank, took over the insolvent company in 1893 and renamed it Shibaura Seisakusho (Shibaura Engineering Works).[20]
Shibaura Seisakusho[edit]
Shibaura Seisakusho (芝浦製作所, Shibaura Engineering Works) was the new name given to Tanaka Seisakusho after it was declared insolvent in 1893 and taken over by Mitsui Bank.
In 1910, it formed a tie-up with General Electric (GE), which, in exchange for technology, acquired about a quarter of the shares of Shibaura. The relation with GE continued until the beginning of World War II and resumed in 1953 with GE's 24 percent shareholding in the successor company, Tokyo Shibaura Denki. This percentage decreased substantially since then.[20]
Hakunetsusha (Tokyo Denki)[edit]
Hakunetsusha (白熱舎) was a company established by Miyoshi Shōichi and Fujioka Ichisuke, two of Japan's industrial pioneers during the Tokugawa / Edo period. It specialized in the manufacture of light bulbs.
The company was established in 1890 and started out by selling bulbs using bamboo filaments. However, following the opening up of trade with the West through the Unequal treaty, Hakunetsusha met with fierce competition from imports. Its bulb cost about 60 percent more than the imports and the quality was poorer. The company managed to survive with the booms after the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, but afterward its financial position was precarious.
In 1905 the company was renamed Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric) and entered into a financial and technological collaboration with General Electric of the US. General Electric acquired 51 percent share of ownership, sent a vice president, and provided the technology for bulb-making. Production equipment was bought from GE and Tokyo Denki soon started selling its products with GE's trademark.
Toshiba Canada offices
As of 2012, Toshiba had 39 R&D facilities worldwide, which employed around 4,180 people,[113] and was organized into four main business groupings: the Digital Products Group, the Electronic Devices Group, the Home Appliances Group and the Social Infrastructure Group.[113] In the year ended 31 March 2012, Toshiba had total revenues of ¥6,100.3 billion, of which 25.2 percent was generated by the Digital Products Group, 24.5 percent by the Electronic Devices Group, 8.7 percent by the Home Appliances Group, 36.6 percent by the Social Infrastructure Group and 5 percent by other activities. In the same year, 45 percent of Toshiba's sales were generated in Japan and 55 percent in the rest of the world.[113]
Toshiba invested a total of ¥319.9 billion in R&D in the year ended 31 March 2012, equivalent to 5.2 percent of sales.[113] Toshiba registered a total of 2,483 patents in the United States in 2011, the fifth-largest number of any company (after IBM, Samsung Electronics, Canon and Panasonic).[113]
Toshiba had around 141,256 employees as of 31 March 2018.[114]
Toshiba USB flash drive
Toshiba microwave oven
Toshiba rice cooker
Toshiba air conditioner
Toshiba battery
Toshiba T9769A integrated circuit
Toshiba hard disk
Toshiba Aquilion Prime CT scanner
Toshiba Vantage Titan MRT-2004 MRI scanner
Toshiba medical ultrasound scanner
Toshiba escalators
Model of the nuclear power plant from Toshiba with Advanced boiling water reactor
Environmental record[edit]
Toshiba has been judged as making "low" efforts to lessen its impact on the environment. In November 2012, they came second from the bottom in Greenpeace's 18th edition of the Guide to Greener Electronics that ranks electronics companies according to their policies on products, energy, and sustainable operations.[139] Toshiba received 2.3 of a possible 10 points, with the top company (WIPRO) receiving 7.1 points. "Zero" scores were received in the categories "Clean energy policy advocacy", "Use of recycled plastics in products" and "Policy and practice on sustainable sourcing of fibres for paper".
In 2010, Toshiba reported that all of its new LCD TVs comply with the Energy Star standards and 34 models exceed the requirements by 30% or more.[140]
Toshiba also partnered with China's Tsinghua University in 2008 in order to form a research facility to focus on energy conservation and the environment.[141] The new Toshiba Energy and Environment Research Center is located in Beijing where forty students from the university will work to research electric power equipment and new technologies that will help stop the global warming process.[141] Through this partnership, Toshiba hopes to develop products that will better protect the environment and save China.[141] This contract between Tsinghua University and Toshiba originally began in October 2007 when they signed an agreement on joint energy and environment research.[141] The projects that they conduct work to reduce car pollution and to create power systems that don't negatively affect the environment.[141]
On 28 December 1970 Toshiba began the construction of unit 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant[142] which was damaged in the Fukushima I nuclear accidents on 14 March 2011. In April 2011, CEO Norio Sasaki declared nuclear energy would "remain as a strong option" even after the Fukushima I nuclear accidents.[143]
In late 2013, Toshiba (Japan) entered the solar power business in Germany, installing PV systems on apartment buildings.[144]