Toshiba has made an announcement that it will no longer make consumer laptops for the European market, but it will rather continue its efforts in the business sector. “Toshiba will concentrate on the B2B PC market globally by developing, manufacturing, and selling its Tecra and Portégé brands to the corporate market” the company said in its statement.
The movement from consumer to corporate sector is being enforced in order to improve profitability of the business unit and also to improve their competitive position against competitors such as Dell, HP and Lenovo. The tech marketplace is somewhat difficult to compete in with HP and Lenovo holding the top rank in 2015, evidently Toshiba has struggled to turn a profit which led to rumours of a merger with Fujitsu and Vaio. Nonetheless, the company is eager to increase its B2B sales in 2016 and to become more profitable. The reorganisation has caused the company to reduce the number of employees by 1300 as well as eliminating multiple operation sites. The company will continue to offer consumer PCs in its home market Japan, but will focus mainly in Europe and North America for the business market.
With this new announcement Toshiba is looking to offer a full range of corporate PCs, tablets and workstations with its Tecra, Portégé and dynaPad brands, hoping the B2B sales of premium models will make a profit in the future. The main focus has said to be on ultra-thin notebooks, tablets and 2-in-1 convertibles, as there has been witnessed a quick growth in this sector and further growth is anticipated.
Toshiba’s retail partners are offering a variety of Satellite notebooks and other consumer PCs at low-cost prices and these systems will be available while stocks last, thereafter customers interested in Toshiba PCs would have to purchase either directly from Toshiba or from other resellers (costing far more!)
Moving forward for Toshiba, the company is said to continue to discuss future changes of its PC business with other third parties. There are also rumours of strategic deals into play with other Japanese PC suppliers and investors, but nothing official has been confirmed yet.
