Why Did Toshiba Stop Making Laptops?

Though Toshiba was once a leading player in the laptop market, the Japanese tech company has been out of that business for over half a decade now. In 2018, Toshiba sold 80% of its computer manufacturer business, Dynabook Inc., to Sharp, transferring its remaining stake two years later. That means Dynabook (originally branded as Toshiba outside Japan) is now a subsidiary of Sharp, which is owned by Foxconn.

There are a lot of reasons for Toshiba's exit from a business that started with what the company claims was the world's first laptop, the Toshiba T1100, back in the '80s, when laptops were more expensive than you may think. The most commonly cited one is that Toshiba simply couldn't compete with other laptop makers, remaining stagnant as companies like Apple, Lenovo, and HP made their devices more exciting. According to Reuters, Toshiba's sales plummeted from 17.7 million units in 2011 to just 1.4 million in 2017.

Those numbers are a good explanation for why Toshiba sold off most, then all, of Dynabook for the relatively low price of $36 million. However, it doesn't tell the entire story. For over a decade now, Toshiba's business and reputation have been damaged by several scandals, resulting in necessary changes that include selling off its laptop business.

In 2015, investigators discovered the tech company had been overstating its profits for years by an amount totaling 151.8 billion yen (equivalent to $1.22 billion at the time) in a scheme that involved top-level executives. An independent panel blamed the fraud on Toshiba's unrealistic goals amid the 2008 financial crisis mixed with a corporate culture where employees almost never question their superiors. It didn't stop there, though, as Toshiba announced in January 2020 that it had discovered more accounting malpractice at a subsidiary that occurred for years after the 2015 report.

The problems didn't stop there. In 2017, subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Company, a nuclear power plant builder, filed for bankruptcy. The following year, a U.S. federal civil court found Toshiba liable for a price fixing scheme related to LCD and imposed an $87 million fine. Then, in 2021, another investigation found that company executives had been colluding with the Japanese government to influence shareholder votes in an effort to suppress the interests of foreign investors. Since Toshiba plays a role in nuclear power and employs over 100,00 people, it's seen as critical to Japan's national security and economy. As a result, the company was acquired by private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners for $14 billion in 2023.

It was in the middle of all these controversies that Toshiba sold off Dynabook and other businesses. Since then, the company has been rebuilding its reputation. It's still in the consumer electronics market, selling things like kitchen appliances and cheap smart TVs, plus a wide range of products and services. Don't expect it to jump back into the laptop business, though. As for Dynabook itself, Sharp has kept the brand going since the acquisition, offering a variety of laptop models aimed at small businesses, students, and others.