Toshiba Australia is looking to enter the Australian appliance market as demand for flat panel TV’s declines, the move comes after we exclusively revealed last week that Hitachi another Japanese who struggled in the TV market has entered the Australian appliance market with a range of premium refrigerators.
According to Toshiba CEO Mark Whittard the global merging of the Companies TV division in with the appliance division could lead to the local subsidiary launching a range of new Toshiba appliances in Australia and New Zealand.
He said that a decision as to whether the Company will continue selling their popular TV range in Australia has not been taken after executives from Toshiba in Japan announced that the Company is scaling back their TV operations and that future TV sales will be managed by the Companies appliance division.
Last week Toshiba Corp said that they were set to cut 50 percent of the staff in its loss-making TV unit and cease production at two of its three overseas factories before the end of this fiscal year.
Whittard said “there is no margin left in the TV business, sales are declining and now that the TV division is being merged with the appliance division we will look at selling appliances in Australia if it is viable”.
Toshiba’s TV segment has been in the red for the past two years due to weak global sales, partly due to a slowdown in Europe and a fall in domestic demand after a short-lived boost from the switch to digital broadcasting.
In July the company announced plans to cut 101 million in costs in its television and PC businesses this fiscal year, and then double that figure in the following year to cope with weak demand.
The company said it expected the measures to help its TV division to swing into the black in the second half of this fiscal year.
