Toshiba has finally concluded the process of transferring its total shares over to Sharp, thereby, leaving the laptop production business completely, after 35 years of PC production.
The Japanese company had in 2018, sold 80.1% of its PC production shares to fellow electronic company – Sharp, for $36 million.
In January, 2019, Sharp rebranded the company, and named it Dynabook, with Toshiba holding on to the remaining 19.9% shares of the new-born.
Sharp added a clause to the contract in June, 2020, which allows the company to acquire the remaining 19.9% of Toshiba’s shares in Dynabook.
Last week, Toshiba released a statement confirming that the remaining 19.9% shares they held in Dynabook, has been transferred to Sharp, and they have completely handed off the business.
The statement reads:
“Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) hereby announces that it has transferred the 19.9% of the outstanding shares in Dynabook Inc. that it held to Sharp Corporation. As a result of this transfer, Dynabook has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sharp.”
Toshiba further stated that:
“On June 30, 2020, under the terms of the share purchase agreement, Sharp exercised a call option for the remaining outstanding shares of Dynabook held by Toshiba, and Toshiba has completed procedures for their transfer.”
The completion of the transfer of shares from Toshiba to fellow electronic company – Sharp, marks the end of a 35-year run of Toshiba producing personal computers.
Toshiba, in 1985, launched the T1100, which is the first laptop computer.
The T1100 was built with 256 KB of memory, a 640×200 pixel reflective LCD screen, and a 3.5-inch floppy disk.
In terms of weight, the T1100 weighed 4.1kg, and cost about $2,000 at that time.
The design of the Toshiba T1100 became a mainstream design for laptops at that time, with nothing significant changing in laptop design, until Apple’s design in early 90s.
Although, Toshiba didn’t become an household name when it started, it later held a large market share in the 90s and early 2000s, but was soon displaced when brands like Lenovo, HP, Apple, and Dell started making better computers.
Toshiba had its peak market share in 2011, with over 17 million computers sold in a year, but by 2017, the company’s sale had dwindled to about 1.4 million computers.