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Toshiba hopes to sell 50 percent more notebooks

As Toshiba Corp yesterday celebrated the 20th anniversary of its invention of the portable computer, the Japanese company vowed that it would boost its sales volume in Taiwan by 50 percent compared with last year.

"We expected to sell about 35,000 laptops in Taiwan with the market share climbing to 8 percent this year," Wang Chang-jen (王章仁), general manager of Grainnex Corp (新禾科技), Toshiba's general agent in Taiwan, said on the sidelines of a press conference yesterday.

Last year the company sold around 23,300 units in Taiwan, with a market share of 3.8 percent, according to International Data Corp (IDC) statistics.

Toshiba appears to be doing well so far, as it shipped some 13,000 laptops in the first half of this year, amounting to a market share of around 5 percent of the total market of around 260,000 units, Wang said.

Toshiba is ranked the fifth-largest notebook-computer vendor in Taiwan, following Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), Acer Inc, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Taiwan Co and IBM Taiwan Corp.

The four largest vendors held a combined market share of 77 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to IDC.

Although the number of notebooks Toshiba has sold thus far amounts to only around one-third of its target for this year, the company is confident of success, banking on an expected rebound in the second half of the year, the executive said.

Acer cut prices for entry-level models in the first quarter in a bid to regain its leading position in the domestic market after its successes in Europe, while HP followed suit last month by slashing prices to as low as NT$24,900 per unit.

To build up an approachable image to end consumers, Toshiba will keep enhancing its product lineup while setting the prices of its mainstream products at around NT$30,000 per unit, the company said.

The vendor this month bypassed its distributors to start a direct partnership with Tsann Kuen Group (燦坤), Taiwan's largest retailer of home appliance and consumer electronics with 167 outlets across the nation, to market Toshiba-labeled notebooks as part of its strategy to boost its market share, Wang said.

Meanwhile, Toshiba expects to strengthen its foothold in the nation's commercial computer segment for corporate customers at the expense of IBM Taiwan.

Toshiba aims to squeeze out IBM to become one of the top two foreign laptop brands in Taiwan along with HP, Wang said.

IBM Taiwan's market share fell below 10 percent for the first time in the first quarter, down from 12 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
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