Toshiba
Toshiba Corporation is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors, hard disk drives, printers, batteries, lighting, as well as IT solutions such as quantum cryptography. It was formerly also one of the biggest manufacturers of personal computers, consumer electronics, home appliances, and medical equipment.
The Toshiba name is derived from its former name, Tokyo Shibaura Denki K.K. which in turn was a 1939 merger between Shibaura Seisaku-sho and Tokyo Denki. The company name was officially changed to Toshiba Corporation in 1978. 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 post-World War II. 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 Kioxia in the late 2010s. The company was also relevant in consumer personal computers, releasing the first mass-market laptop in 1985 and later ranking as a major vendor of laptops; it exited the PC business in 2020 having divested it into Dynabook Inc.
Toshiba faced trouble during the 2010s amid a much-publicised accounting scandal that affected its reputation, and the bankruptcy of its subsidiary nuclear energy company Westinghouse in 2017. This forced the conglomerate to shed a number of underperforming businesses, essentially eliminating the company's century-long presence in consumer markets. After a rejection to split the company, Toshiba was purchased by a consortium led by Japan Industrial Partners and Tolba in 2023; Toshiba turned private as a result and was delisted after 74 years from the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where it was formerly a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX 100 indices.
History
Tanaka Seisakusho
Tanaka Seisakusho was the first company established by Tanaka Hisashige, one of the most original and productive inventor-engineers during the Tokugawa / Edo period. Established on 11 July 1875, 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 factory later became pioneers themselves. These included who helped 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 ; and Ishiguro Keizaburō, a co-founder of the present Anritsu.
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 Seisakusho
Shibaura Seisakusho 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, 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.Hakunetsusha (Tokyo Denki)
Hakunetsusha was a company established by Miyoshi Shōichi and, two of Japan's industrial pioneers during the Tokugawa / Edo period. It specialized in the manufacturing of lightbulbs. 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 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.
1939 to 2000
Toshiba was founded in 1939 by the merger of Shibaura Seisakusho and Tokyo Denki. The merger of Shibaura and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura Denki . It was soon nicknamed Toshiba, but it was not until 1978 that the company was officially renamed Toshiba Corporation. The company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in May 1949.The group expanded rapidly, driven by a combination of organic growth and by acquisitions, buying heavy engineering, and primary industry firms in the 1940s and 1950s. Groups created include Toshiba Music Industries/Toshiba EMI, Toshiba International Corporation, Toshiba Electrical Equipment, Toshiba Chemical, Toshiba Lighting and Technology, Toshiba America Information Systems and Toshiba Carrier Corporation. The first mini-split ductless air conditioner was sold in 1961 by Toshiba in Japan.
Toshiba is responsible for a number of Japanese firsts, including radar, the TAC digital computer, transistor television, color CRTs and microwave oven, color video phone, Japanese word processor, MRI system, personal computer Pasopia, laptop personal computer, NAND EEPROM, DVD, the Libretto sub-notebook personal computer and HD DVD. In 1977, Toshiba acquired the Brazilian company Semp, subsequently forming Semp Toshiba through the combination of the two companies' South American operations.
In 1987, Toshiba Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba, was accused of illegally selling CNC milling machines used to produce very quiet submarine propellers to the Soviet Union in violation of the CoCom agreement, an international embargo on certain countries to COMECON countries. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. The incident strained relations between the United States and Japan, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two senior executives, as well as the imposition of sanctions on the company by both countries. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said: "What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million."
2000 to 2010
In 2001, Toshiba signed a contract with Orion Electric, one of the world's largest OEM consumer video electronic makers and suppliers, to manufacture and supply finished consumer TV and video products for Toshiba to meet the increasing demand for the North American market. The contract ended in 2008, ending seven years of OEM production with Orion.In December 2004, Toshiba quietly announced it would discontinue manufacturing traditional in-house cathode-ray tube televisions. In 2005, Matsushita Toshiba Picture Display Co. Ltd. stopped production of CRTs at its factory in Horseheads, New York. A year later, in 2006, it stopped production at its Malaysian factory, following heavy losses. In 2006, Toshiba terminated sales of CRT TVs in Japan and production of in-house plasma TVs. To ensure its future competitiveness in the flat-panel digital television and display market, Toshiba has made a considerable investment in a new kind of display technology called SED. This technology was never sold to the public, as it was not price-competitive with LCDs. Toshiba sold its share in SED Inc. to Canon after Nano-Proprietary, which owns several patents related to SED technology, claimed SED Inc. was not a subsidiary of Canon.
Before World War II, Toshiba was a member of the Mitsui Group zaibatsu. Today Toshiba is a member of the Mitsui keiretsu, and still has preferential arrangements with Mitsui Bank and the other members of the keiretsu. Membership in a keiretsu has traditionally meant loyalty, both corporate and private, to other members of the keiretsu or allied keiretsu. This loyalty can extend as far as the beer the employees consume, which in Toshiba's case is Asahi.
In July 2005, BNFL confirmed it planned to sell Westinghouse Electric Company, then estimated to be worth $1.8 billion. The bid attracted interest from several companies including Toshiba, General Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and when the Financial Times reported on 23 January 2006 that Toshiba had won the bid, it valued the company's offer at $5 billion. The sale of Westinghouse by the Government of the United Kingdom surprised many industry experts, who questioned the wisdom of selling one of the world's largest producers of nuclear reactors shortly before the market for nuclear power was expected to grow substantially; China, the United States and the United Kingdom were all expected to invest heavily in nuclear power. The acquisition of Westinghouse for $5.4 billion was completed on 17 October 2006, with Toshiba obtaining a 77 percent share, and partners The Shaw Group a 20 percent share and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. a 3 percent share.
In late 2007, Toshiba took over from Discover Card as the sponsor of the top-most screen of One Times Square in New York City. It displays the iconic 60-second New Year's countdown on its screen, as well as messages, greetings, and advertisements for the company. The sponsor of the New Year's countdown was taken over by Capital One on 31 December 2018. In January 2009, Toshiba acquired the HDD business of Fujitsu.