Sharp Acquires Toshiba PC business for $36 mn

Japan’s Sharp Corporation has said it will buy Toshiba Corp’s personal computer (PC) business for $36 million. With the acquisition, Sharp is set for a return to the PC market after a gap of eight years. According to Reuters, Toshiba has sold its PC business to the Osaka based Sharp for $1.8 billion in new shares, to buy back preferred stock from banks. Sharp will take an 80.1 per cent stake in the new business, starting October 1 2018.

Sharp’s parent company is Foxconn, (known formally as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd ) the world’s biggest contract manufacturer. Experts are of the opinion that by using the scale of Foxconn, Sharp might be able to produce PCs more cheaply, just as it has done with TVs. Toshiba, which launched the world’s first laptop PC in 1985, sold 17.7m PCs at its peak seven years ago. However, that figure has shrunk to just 1.4 million units last year.