Almost every one of Toshiba’s business have been impacted by last year’s corruption scandal, now the Company has warned that their annual operating loss could top A$8 Billion dollars, they have also said that they are getting “right out” of consumer electronics.
What is not known at this stage is whether this means they will exit the PC market altogether.
In Australia the Company is sacking staff, getting out of the consumer PC market and very soon they will lose control of their medical equipment business to Canon.
Their latest write-down comes after Toshiba wrote down the value of its stake in US nuclear unit Westinghouse in the wake of the $1.3bn accounting scandal.
Mark Whittard the CEO of Toshiba Australia has not returned calls.
For months the Japanese Company has repeatedly played down the need to write down current businesses, after they deliberately inflated their profits for the seven years between 2007 and 2014.
Last year ChannelNews challenged the Companies local PC market share after Mark Whittard told a PC press conference that the Company was growing in the PC market.
Late this afternoon in Japan Toshiba blamed lower credit ratings and increased fundraising costs as a result of its accounting scandal for taking an impairment charge A$2.98.
As a result, Toshiba said it was likely to book an operating loss of ¥690bn for the fiscal year that ended in March, instead of a loss of ¥430bn it had earlier projected.
Naoki Fujiwara, a fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management, said: “There is some sense of betrayal after the company had long played down the need for a write-down.
To bolster its finances, Toshiba recently agreed to sell its medical device unit to Canon for US$6bn and its home appliance business to China’s Midea for an undisclosed price.
The company has said it plans to start making money again in the next financial year by retreating from consumer electronics, and narrowing its focus to nuclear, infrastructure and chip making businesses.
Still, even with the latest step, some analysts remain sceptical whether the earnings conditions for its remaining core businesses will improve, while the company also faces the risk of additional restructuring costs.
Ikuo Matsuhashi, Goldman Sachs analyst, in a recent report suggested that Toshiba’s hard disc drive business may have deteriorated, citing weak earnings at Seagate. Earlier this month, the US data storage maker cut its quarterly sales outlook amid lower demand for its hard drives.
Even Toshiba’s manipulative PR Company Ogilvy PR is not commenting on the corrupt actions of their client.
