Audio Video News

It’s Official: Toshiba Exits TV Business in U.S.

Bob Ankosko  |  Feb 2, 2015

In contrast to years past, TVs were in short supply in the Toshiba booth at the recent CES 2015 trade show.

Toshiba will no longer develop and sell TVs in North America as part of a restructuring and will license the TV business to Taiwan’s Compal Electronics. According to a press release issued in Tokyo, Compal will begin delivering Toshiba brand TVs to the North American market in March.

News of Toshiba’s decision is not a surprise as there have been rumblings of the exit for quite some time. Just a few weeks ago Tom Norton raised the question of whether Toshiba had abandoned the TV market in a blog he wrote at CES 2015.

Intensifying price competition in the global TV market was cited as a key reason for the move in a report by the Japan Times.

Toshiba joins several other high-profile brands—including Hitachi, Pioneer, and Mitsubishi—that have abandoned the rapidly changing and hyper competitive TV category, which a Hitachi executive once called a business of “profitless prosperity” where millions of TVs are sold at little or no profit.

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