On June 5th, Beijing time, Toshiba issued a statement saying that it has decided to sell its 80.1% stake in Toshiba's Customer Solutions Division (TCS), which operates its personal computer (PC) business, to Sharp. Toshiba expects that The transaction will be completed on October 1.
Sharp also announced the acquisition on the same day. In this transaction, it only needs to pay 4 billion yen (about 230 million yuan).
This transaction marks Sharp's return to the PC market after eight years, and also marks the Toshiba veteran PC maker formally withdrawing from the business. Analysts believe that Foxconn, which currently owns Sharp, has played an important role in this transaction. A generation of giants is working to establish Foxconn’s position in the electronics industry.
One advance and one retreat
The Wall Street Journal reported in the same day that today, the two former Japanese electronics giants Sharp and Toshiba have embarked on a very different course of development. Both have suffered a serious financial crisis in recent years. Sharp accepted Hon Hai in Taiwan. The acquisition of Technology (Foxconn) became a subsidiary of the latter, and successfully reversed. Toshiba, which relied mainly on Japanese government support, was still trapped in the dilemma of restructuring its portfolio.
In 2015, with the exposure of the 'False Book' scandal, eight of the 16 Toshiba board members resigned, including then CEO, Hisao Tanaka. Subsequently, Toshiba’s US nuclear power company, Westinghouse Electric, was The bankruptcy of 2017 was even a time when Toshiba was pushed to the edge of the precipice that might be delisted by the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
In order to solve financial difficulties, Toshiba has conducted a series of sales of its business units, including the sale of TV business to Hisense Group, the sale of white goods business to Midea Group, and the sale of its most profitable semiconductor business unit. The acquisition consortium led by the private equity firm Bain Capital retained only 40% of its shares. This included both the reluctance to raise funds and the transfer of the 'Bao' business.
From the perspective of recent performance and selling prices, the sale of the Toshiba PC business may belong to the latter. In the past five years, the business unit has suffered continuous losses. Toshiba’s statement shows that in the fiscal year 2017 ending in March 2018, Toshiba's PC business unit sales were 146.68 billion yen, a decrease of 11.1% from 16.60 billion yen in fiscal 2016, and a net loss of 8.21 billion yen.
In contrast, Sharp, two years ago, this Japanese company was also deeply involved in the loss of losses. In fiscal years 2014 and 2015, Sharp had a net loss of 222.35 billion yen and 256 billion yen respectively, which once entered the state of insolvency. March 2016 , Sharp chose to accept Hon Hai Technology's investment and became a subsidiary of Taiwan's foundry giant.
At that time, the industry had been optimistic about this acquisition: Sharp's technology and brand advantages can complement the Hon Hai’s manufacturing and market development advantages. In the 2016 fiscal year ending March 31, 2017, Sharp’s recovery has not yet fully emerged. The company’s revenue for the year was 2.005 trillion yen, which was 16.7% lower than the previous fiscal year, but the loss was significantly narrowed to 24.88 billion yen.
Recently, Sharp announced its fiscal year 2017 financial statements as of March 31, 2018, showing that its fiscal year revenue reached 2,427.27 billion yen, an increase of 18.4% over the previous fiscal year, and a profit of 70.23 billion yen turned profitably.
Global PC market downturn
Since Gartner, a business research agency, started statistics on PC market information in the 1990s, before 2001, only Packard Bell NEC (NEC abandoned Packard Bell formally in 1999) entered a top five shipment of 'Japanese elements'. The remaining seats have long been occupied by Compaq, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and other major US manufacturers.
With Toshiba, shipments of Fujitsu entered the top five at the beginning of the new century, and the Japanese PC industry gradually took an important position in the international market. However, it did not last long. NEC and Fujitsu lost their ranks in 2003 and 2006 respectively. , and then failed to return to the first camp. Toshiba, who had basically secured the top five global shipments, has not returned to this list since 2011.
Although from 2006 to 2010, Toshiba’s market share in the PC market continued to increase, achieving 3.8%, 4.0%, 4.5%, 5.1%, and 5.4% results in five years, but faster growth compared to others. The head of the company, Toshiba has gradually been opened the gap: In 2011 the fifth Asus (ASUS) market share has reached 5.9%, 2017 is still ranked fifth Asus market share has reached 6.8%.
The increasingly concentrated global PC market trend has become even more apparent. Gartner data shows that from 2001 to 2017, the total market share of the rest of the PC makers except the top five head manufacturers fell all the way from 58.1% to 28.8%. In other words, The market share of the five major manufacturers has exceeded 70%.
In this context, Sharp intends to regain a place in this market by taking over Toshiba's PC business after eight years of exiting. It also faces considerable challenges. In addition, it faces the overall recession of Japan's electronics industry and the global PC market is in the doldrums. The double dilemma.
In recent years, Japan’s electronics manufacturers have been losing ground, either directly withdrawing from markets such as PCs, home appliances, smart phones, or stopping their overseas operations.
From 2002 to 2011, the global PC market had maintained a strong growth trend for a long period of time. In most of these years, the growth rate reached two digits. However, in 2011, this figure was sharply reduced from 13.8% in the previous year to 0.5%. .
Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa said in the analysis of the year that the uncertainties in Western European economies and the lack of stimulus in North America have offset the growth of the PC business in emerging markets, and the global PC consumer market has shown a negative trend.
In 2012, global PC market shipments fell by 3.5%. Kitagawa pointed out in its analysis report in 2013 that the maturity of flat-panel products is already diverting consumers in the PC market: 'We are increasingly skeptical, and more individual consumers. Will turn to personal tablet products, use public computers only when creating or managing work.
Since then, the global PC market has entered a sustained downturn, and shipments have been declining year by year. In the first quarter of 2018, IDC data showed that global PC market shipments maintained zero growth, but Gartner data showed that the market continues to decline 1.4 %.