After losing its market leadership in recent years, Toshiba says it intends to "make a comeback" in the EMEA region.
Launching new notebooks in Johannesburg yesterday, Toshiba EMEA executives conceded the brand had lost some ground to competitors in the past few years. However, they stressed that Toshiba had created the notebook and had sustained market leadership for at least 15 years.
"We`ve had a rocky past few years, but the company has been restructured and it`s showing growth. Toshiba is hungry," said Pieter Paul Ickx, Toshiba GM for emerging EMEA markets and Italy. "It is possible to turn a company around in 12 months," he said, noting that this is what Toshiba intends to do.
The turnaround strategy has already borne fruit in the Middle East. Strategiy, a portal for Middle East marketing, advertising and media professionals, stated this week that the latest IDC report on the Middle East notebook market placed Toshiba in the lead across the region. The report said Toshiba had shown over 160% growth over the past year in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - 53% above average market growth.
Ickx said Toshiba is positive about the potential for continued growth in the EMEA market, based on the region`s geographical size, huge population and lack of PC and notebook saturation.
The Computer Systems Division of Toshiba Europe GmbH is reinforcing its presence by opening an office in SA. Toshiba said it will continue to work with its existing distributor, Rectron, but will also distribute its notebooks through Mustek in future.
New products
Among the new notebooks introduced this week were the Portege M400 tablet PC featuring Intel Centrino Duo Mobile technology architecture. It is equipped with new EasyGuard security features such as fingerprint reader and an anti-theft protection timer that locks the system after a pre-set time.
Toshiba also unveiled two additions to its B2B notebook series - the Tecra A7 and Tecra M5, both also featuring the Intel Centrino Duo processing chip.
Highlighting the trend towards ubiquitous computing and the convergence of computing and entertainment, Toshiba also highlighted its first HD DVD AV PC notebook, the Qosmio G30. The notebook, a "mobile home entertainment" device, has multimedia and audio capabilities.
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