Tanaka Seisakusho 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, 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 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 (
Oki Electric Industry); 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 Engineering Works). and Tokyo Denki. The merger of Shibaura and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura Denki (Tokyo Shibaura Electric) (). 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 (1960), Toshiba International Corporation (the 1970s), Toshiba Electrical Equipment (1974), Toshiba Chemical (1974), Toshiba Lighting and Technology (1989), Toshiba America Information Systems (1989) and Toshiba Carrier Corporation (1999). 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 (1912), the TAC digital computer (1954), transistor television, color CRTs and microwave oven (1959),
color video phone (1971), Japanese
word processor (1978), MRI system (1982), personal computer
Pasopia (1981), laptop personal computer (1986), NAND EEPROM (1991), DVD (1995), the
Libretto sub-notebook personal computer (1996) and
HD DVD (2005). In 1977, Toshiba acquired the Brazilian company Semp (Sociedade Eletromercantil Paulista), subsequently forming Semp Toshiba through the combination of the two companies' South American operations. of Pennsylvania said: "What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million." Toshiba JW-10 (1979)
2000 to 2010 , an obscure DVD/Console hybrid, manufactured by Toshiba in 2000. 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 (CRT) televisions. In 2005, Matsushita Toshiba Picture Display Co. Ltd. (a joint venture between
Panasonic and Toshiba created in 2002) 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 (family-controlled
vertical monopoly). Today Toshiba is a member of the Mitsui
keiretsu (a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings), 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 (£1 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 (£2.8 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.
2010 to 2014 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 2010 the company released a series of television models including the WL768, YL863, VL963 designed in collaboration with Danish designer
Timothy Jacob Jensen. In April 2012, Toshiba agreed to acquire
IBM's point-of-sale business for $850 million, making it the world's largest vendor of point-of-sale systems. In July 2012, Toshiba was accused of fixing the prices of LCD panels in the United States at a high level. While such claims were denied by Toshiba, it agreed to settle alongside several other manufacturers for a total of $571 million. In December 2013, Toshiba completed its acquisition of Vijai Electricals Limited plant at Hyderabad and set up its own base for manufacturing of transmission and distribution products (transformers and switchgears) under the Social Infrastructure Group in India as Toshiba Transmission & Distribution Systems (India) Private Limited. In January 2014, Toshiba completed its acquisition of
OCZ Storage Solutions. OCZ Technology stock was halted on 27 November 2013. OCZ then stated it expected to file a petition for bankruptcy and that Toshiba Corporation had expressed interest in purchasing its assets in a bankruptcy proceeding. On 2 December 2013, OCZ announced Toshiba had agreed to purchase nearly all of OCZ's assets for $35 million. The deal was completed on 21 January 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 18 August 2014, ZCO Liquidating Corporation and its subsidiaries were liquidated.
OCZ Storage Solutions was dissolved on 1 April 2016 and absorbed into Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., with OCZ becoming a brand of Toshiba. In March 2014, Toshiba sued
SK Hynix, accusing the company of stealing technology of its NAND flash memory. In the late same year, the two companies settled with a deal in which SK Hynix pays US$278 million to Toshiba. Toshiba had sued Hynix in the early 2000s for
patent infringement. In October 2014, Toshiba and
United Technologies agreed a deal to expand their joint venture outside
Japan.
2015 Accounting scandal 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, Toshiba Corp. was removed from a stock index showcasing Japan's best companies. That was the second reshuffle of the index, which picks companies with the best operating income, return on equity and market value. Toshiba announced in early 2015 that it would stop making televisions in its own factories. From 2015 onward, Toshiba televisions will be made by
Compal for the U.S., or by
Vestel and other manufacturers for the European market. In September 2015, Toshiba shares fell to their lowest point in two and a half years. The firm said in a statement that its net losses for the quarterly period were 12.3 billion yen ($102m; £66m). The company noted poor performances in its televisions, home appliances and personal computer businesses. In October 2015, Toshiba sold the image sensor business to
Sony. In December 2015, Muromachi said the episode had wiped about $8 billion off Toshiba's market value. He forecast a record 550 billion yen (about US$4.6 billion) annual loss and warned the company would have to overhaul its TV and computer businesses. Toshiba would not be raising funds for two years, he said. The next week, a company spokesperson announced Toshiba would seek 300 billion yen ($2.5 billion) in 2016, taking the company's indebtedness to more than 1 trillion yen (about $8.3 billion). In January 2016, Toshiba's security division unveiled a new bundle of services for schools that use its surveillance equipment. The program, which is intended for both K-12 and higher education, includes education discounts, alerts, and post-warranty support, among other features, on its IP-based security gear. In March 2016, Toshiba was preparing to start construction on a cutting-edge new semiconductor plant in Japan that would mass-produce chips based on the ultra-dense flash variant. Toshiba expected to spend approximately 360 billion yen, or $3.2 billion, on the project through May 2019. In April 2016, Toshiba recalled 100,000 faulty laptop lithium-ion batteries, which were made by
Panasonic, that can overheat, posing burn and fire hazards to consumers, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Toshiba first announced the recall in January and said it was recalling the batteries in certain Toshiba Notebook computers sold since June 2011. In May 2016, it was announced that Satoshi Tsunakawa, the former head of Toshiba's medical equipment division, was named CEO. This appointment came after the accounting scandal that occurred. In September 2016, Toshiba announced the first wireless power receiver
IC using the
Qi 1.2.2 specification, developed in association with the
Wireless Power Consortium. In December 2016,
Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation was acquired by
Canon. A Chinese electrical appliance corporation
Midea Group bought a controlling 80.1% stake in the Toshiba Home Appliances Group.
2017 US nuclear construction liabilities In late December 2016, the management of Toshiba requested an "urgent press briefing" to announce that the newly-found losses in the
Westinghouse subsidiary from
Vogtle Electric Generating Plant nuclear plant construction would lead to a write-down of several billion dollars, bankrupting Westinghouse and threatening to bankrupt Toshiba. The exact amount of the liabilities was unavailable. In January 2017, a person with direct knowledge of the matter reported that the company plans on making its memory chip division a separate business, to save Toshiba from bankruptcy. 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. Construction delays, regulatory changes and cost overruns at Westinghouse-built nuclear facilities
Vogtle units 3 and 4 in Waynesboro, Georgia and
VC Summer units 2 and 3 in South Carolina, were cited as the main causes of the dramatic fall in Toshiba's financial performance and collapse in the share price. Fixed priced construction contracts negotiated by Westinghouse with Georgia Power left Toshiba with uncharted liabilities that resulted in the sale of key Toshiba operating subsidiaries to secure the company's future. Westinghouse filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 29 March 2017. The newly independent company was named
Toshiba Memory Corporation, and then renamed
Kioxia. On 15 November 2017,
Hisense reached a deal to acquire 95% of Toshiba Visual Solutions (
television sets) for US$113.6 million. Later that month, the company announced that it would pull out of its long-standing sponsorships of the Japanese television programs
Sazae-san,
Nichiyō Gekijo, and the video screens on top of
One Times Square in
New York City. The company cited that the value of these placements were reduced by its exit from consumer-oriented lines of business. On 6 April 2018, Toshiba announced the completion of the sale of Westinghouse's holding company to
Brookfield Business Partners and some partners for $4.6 billion.
Present and future File:Lazona Kawasaki Toshiba Building.jpg|
Toshiba Science Museum in
Kawasaki, Japan File:Toshiba Himeji.jpg|Toshiba factory in
Taishi, Japan File:Elevator Research Tower of Toshiba Fuchu Complex.jpg|Elevator Research Tower of Toshiba Fuchu Complex. The largest factory complex in the Toshiba organization File:Toshiba Rinkan Hospital.jpg|Toshiba Rinkan Hospital,
Kanagawa, Japan In June 2018, Toshiba sold 80.1% of its Client Solutions (
personal computers) business unit to
Sharp for $36m, with an option allowing Sharp to buy the remaining 19.9% share. Sharp renamed the business to
Dynabook, a brand name Toshiba had used in Japan, and started releasing products under that name. On 30 June 2020, Sharp exercised its option to acquire the remaining 19.9% percent of Dynabook shares from Toshiba. In May 2019, Toshiba announced that it would put non-Japanese investors on its board for the first time in nearly 80 years. In November, the company transferred its logistics service business to SBS Group. In January 2020, Toshiba unveiled its plan to launch quantum cryptography services by September the same year. and a proprietary
computer algorithm named
Simulated Bifurcation Algorithm that mimics
quantum computing, of which it plans to sell access to other parties such as financial institutions, social networking services, etc. The company claims the algorithm running on a desktop PC at room temperature environment is capable of surpassing the performance of similar algorithms running on existing
supercomputers, even that of laser-based quantum computer when a specialized setting is given. It has been added to quantum computing services offered by major cloud platforms including
Microsoft Azure. In October 2020, Toshiba made a decision to pull out of the system
LSI business citing mounted losses while reportedly mulling on the sale of its semiconductor fabs as well. In April 2021,
CVC Capital Partners made a takeover offer. On 12 November 2021, Toshiba announced that it would split into three separate companies. Two of the companies will respectively focus on infrastructure and electronic devices; the third, which will retain the Toshiba name, would manage the 40.6% stake in
Kioxia and all other remaining assets. The company expected to complete the plan by March 2024 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. In March 2023, the company announced it had accepted a trillion (billion) buyout offer from a consortium of 20 companies, which was led by
Japan Industrial Partners (JIP), a Tokyo-based private equity firm, and includes
Orix,
Chubu Electric Power, and
Rohm. 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. On 22 December 2023, it was announced that JIP's purchase of the company had been completed, two days after being delisted. This move brought the company back to Japan after it had been run by overseas
activist investors. ==Operations==