28 December 2003
Toshiba was founded in 1939 by the merger of Shibaura Seisakusho (Shibaura Engineering Works) and Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric). Shibaura Seisakusho had been founded as Tanaka Seisakusho by Tanaka Hisashige in July 1875 as Japan's first manufacturer of telegraph equipment. In 1904, it was renamed Shibaura Seisakusho. Through the first decades of the 20th century, Shibaura Seisakusho had become a major manufacturer of heavy electrical machinery as Japan modernized during the Meiji Era and became a world industrial power. Tokyo Denki was founded as Hakunetsusha in 1890 and had been Japan's first producer of incandescent electric lamps. It later diversified into the manufacture of other consumer products and in 1899 had been renamed Tokyo Denki. The merger of Shibaura and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura Denki (Tokyo Shibaura Electric) (東京 芝浦 電気). It was soon nicknamed Toshiba, but it was not until 1978 that the company was officially renamed Toshiba Corporation.
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.
Toshiba announced on 16 May 2011, that it had agreed to acquire all of the shares of the Swiss-based advanced-power-meter maker Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion.
In January 2014, Toshiba completed its acquisition of OCZ Storage Solutions. OCZ Technology stock was halted on November 27, 2013. OCZ then stated they expected to file a petition for bankruptcy and that Toshiba Corporation had expressed interest in purchasing its assets in a bankruptcy proceeding. On December 2, 2013, OCZ announced Toshiba had agreed to purchase nearly all of OCZ's assets for $35 million. The deal was completed on January 21, 2014 when the assets of OCZ Technology Group became a new independently-operated subsidiary of Toshiba named OCZ Storage Solutions. OCZ Technology Group then changed its name to ZCO Liquidating Corporation; on August 18, 2014, ZCO Liquidating Corporation and its subsidiaries were liquidated. OCZ Storage Solutions was dissolved on April 1, 2016 and absorbed into Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., with OCZ becoming a brand of Toshiba.
Toshiba first announced in May 2015 that it was investigating an accounting scandal and it might have to revise its profits for the previous three years. On 21 July 2015, CEO Hisao Tanaka announced his resignation amid an accounting scandal that he called "the most damaging event for our brand in the company's 140-year history." Profits had been inflated by $1.2 billion over the previous seven years. Eight other senior officials also resigned, including the two previous CEOs. Chairman Masashi Muromachi was appointed acting CEO. Following the scandal which picks companies with the best operating income, return on equity and market value.
In February 2017, Toshiba revealed unaudited details of a 390 billion yen ($3.4 billion) corporate wide loss, mainly arising from its majority owned US based Westinghouse nuclear construction subsidiary which was written down by 712 billion yen ($6.3 billion). On 14 February 2017, Toshiba delayed filing financial results, and chairman Shigenori Shiga, formerly chairman of Westinghouse, resigned.
Toshiba is headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan and has operations worldwide. It had around 210,000 employees as of 31 March 2012.
Toshiba is organized into the following principal business groupings, divisions and subsidiaries:
- Digital Products Group
- Digital Products and Services Company
- Network & Solution Control Center
- Toshiba TEC Corporation
Toshiba offers a wide range of products and services, including air conditioners, consumer electronics (including televisions and DVD and Blu-ray players), control systems (including air-traffic control systems, railway systems, security systems and traffic control systems), electronic point of sale equipment, elevators and escalators, home appliances (including refrigerators and washing machines), IT services, lighting, materials and electronic components, medical equipment (including CT and MRI scanners, ultrasound equipment and X-ray equipment), office equipment, business telecommunication equipment personal computers, semiconductors, power systems (including electricity turbines, fuel cells and nuclear reactors) power transmission and distribution systems, and TFT displays.
In October 2010, Toshiba unveiled the Toshiba Regza GL1 21" LED backlit LCD TV glasses-free 3D prototype at CEATEC 2010. This system supports 3D capability without glasses . The retail product was released in December 2010.
4K Ultra HD (3840x2160p) TVs provides four times the resolution of 1080p Full HD TVs resulting in higher quality resolution. Toshiba’s 4K HD LED TVs are powered by a CEVO 4K Quad + Dual Core Processor.
On 19 February 2008, Toshiba announced that it would be discontinuing its HD DVD storage format following defeat in a format 'war' against Blu-ray. The HD DVD format had failed after most of the major US film studios backed the Blu-ray format, which was developed by Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer and Toshiba's President, Atsutoshi Nishida. "We concluded that a swift decision would be best [and] if we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win".
REGZA (Real Expression Guaranteed by Amazing Architecture) is a unified television brand owned and manufactured by Toshiba. In 2010 REGZA name disappeared from the North American market, and from March 2015 new TVs carrying the Toshiba name are designed and produced by Compal Electronics, a Taiwanese company, which Toshiba has licensed its name to. REGZA is also used in Android-based smartphones that were developed by Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile Communications.
In October 2014, Toshiba released the Chromebook 2, a new version with a thinner profile and a much-improved display. The Chromebook runs exclusively on the Chrome operating system and gives users free Google Drive storage and access to a collection of apps and extensions at the Chrome Web Store.
In March 2015, Toshiba announced the development of the first 48-layer, three-dimensional flash memory. The new flash memory is based on a vertical stacking technology that Toshiba calls BiCS (Bit Cost Scaling), stores two bits of data per transistor and can store 128Gbits (16GB) per chip.
Toshiba has been judged as making 'low' efforts to lessen their 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. 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.'
