Toshiba drops Japan TV operations amid falling prices, global competition

With so much news, movies and entertainment available online these days, the old TV sets will become obsolete in the not too distant future.

Hang on... I just had an idea. Why don't they make all new TV's a true home entertainment systems complete with on board internet access, wireless keyboard and mouse.

Think of it as a 52inch iPad in the living room.

Mum can watch her brain numbing and soul destroying 'tarento' shows The kids can play games, use Facebook and do their homework. Dad can watch ahem 'AV female entertainers' to wind down after a busy day doing not much at the office all day.

Sounds like a winner to me.

Bloody good ideas from TokyoKawasaki! If Toshiba had hired TokyoKawasaki they may not be in the horrible economic mess they are in now.

Toshiba, the maker of the Regza brand of televisions, has shifted all of its television production to factories in China, Indonesia, Egypt and Poland

Meanwhile, Samsung and L.G have shifted their TV's into Japanese electrical stores. It's getting harder for Japanese makers to compete it seems, but maybe this competition will force them to get innovative again and produce low-cost but high quality products. The thought of losing out to Korea should be a shot in the arm, you'd think.

While telling them to produce better TVs is interesting, it's ultimately useless. Most of the demand is outside Japan, especially with the ridiculous prices internally. In the USA, a 55" (55v) TV is typically about $1500-$2500 (for very good ones), while in Japan you are looking at more than 500000 yen for a decent 55V. For small TVs it's even worse, a 19" TV in the USA is about $100, while in Japan some of them are more than 50000 yen. And while OTA channels are free in the USA, NHK demands almost 35000 yen/year from anyone with a TV.

Who would ever want to buy one here?

On top of low demand, I'm absolutely sure that the higher electricity costs played a major role in Toshiba's decision.

Everyone always complains about how everything is "Made in China" and cheap crap etc, but when it comes to buy something, the only thing people will look at is the price... that's why there's no manufacturing in developed countries anymore.

tokyokawasaki: You mean like the "Smart TVs" that are like half the market already? Sony and friends already sell TVs with internet browsers and apps for stuff like twitter, internet video streaming (netflix) etc etc. Most people don't care.

next up - automobiles

As long as the Yen remains super duper strong expect this to happen a lot often in the future.

@tokyokawasaki,

They already make them and it's a great success. They're called Google TV and are in great demand.

Google TV??

Its too bad. I have not been disappointed in a Toshiba product yet and I have several. Sony and L.G. have certainly let me down though. To be fair to L.G. though, the TV I got of theirs was used. It died in months.

This is what happens when you expect Japanese people to continue to buy expensive "Made in Japan" electronics. Took a few years but finally the public just isn't putting up with the prices. And "slow domestic demands"? Didn't the country just change over recently? If there was a time for them to have been booming it was the last year or so.

Next up, Sony and Panasonic.

Companies here are waking up to making things cheaper and easier elsewhere. Japan needs to rethink their "unable to fire" labour laws here if they don't want all the companies to pack up and move elsewhere.

@tokyokawasaki:

Sounds like a winner to me.

Are you kidding??! We rip each other apart to get to the ipad as it is. Throw everything into one TV set and we will all seriously kill each other in our house!

Tokyokawasaki - I think you'll find Samsung already has basically that number.

Many electric products are on the same fortune. Where shoud the Japanese workers go?

smart move stop making tv totally! sony and panasonic are going to lose money again. wait for apple tv to come out and copy it! thats the way u make $$

Where shoud the Japanese workers go?

China? Back to school?

All of my "Japanese" products in my home - Toshiba TV, SONY TV, Casio watch, Canon Printer - are not made in Japan anyway! What household electronics are still actually made in Japan?

I recently bought a Toshiba 22" Regzjgayua (names impossible to remember) and am quite pleased with it. Wanted to support Japan was that TV made in China? Darn! and also have been pleased with Toshiba products in general.

Had a 32-inch Sharp Aquos when I was in Japan. A good TV, but my 72-inch, 3-D, Sony is far superior.

RR

I was having a pretty decent conversation about this with a Japanese coworker today. The conversation didn't go so well when I suggested that while Japanese corporate culture (dithering) worked when this country was the only good player in this region up until the 90s when things started to level out. There's plenty of stories about international business negotiators striking deals with Japan's rivals, while the Japanese are still on their 20th meeting amongst themselves to deliberate whether to proceed or not. The corporate culture here is going to have to become more flexible and prepared to make snappier decisions, or they'll simply lose out even more when the Chinese eventually churn out quality products.

Value for Money..............its been pretty poor for the last 3decades in almost ALL sectors of the economy here.

FINALLY the locals are starting to clue in, although more like forced to clue in, but better late than never.

Now will Japan Inc ever clue in............... or will Japan Inc simply drift overseas completely......

Anyone form NAmerica who is 45+yrs old has seen this all happen back in the 70-80s, Japan daftly thought they wud be forever imune but here we are & most of the locals are to quote Zeppelin DAZED & CONFUSED!

Many Japanese makers can produce sophisticated television having high quality screen. In general, those TVs are so expensive. But unfortunately, I don't have any TV programs I want to see with the TV. I usually see news, comedy and education program. I don't need high quality TV to see them. Therefore, to stimulate domestic demand for the TV, the TV programs that need the high ability and quality will be necessary in advance.

meanwhile, Toshiba (and Hitachi's) infrastructure business is booming and overall the group is posting a healthy profit. Making TVs in Japan stopped making sense awhile ago.

In the USA, a 55" (55v) TV is typically about $1500-$2500 (for very good ones), while in Japan you are looking at more than 500000 yen for a decent 55V

Who needs a 55 inch TV in a 10-12 mat room in Japan?　And for your information, that size screen TV actually sells here for around 178,000 yen. So check your sources before posting here, please.

Is Toshiba going to continue to sponsor Sazaesan?

The move is the latest development highlighting the plunging fortunes of Japan’s once world-beating electronics firms.

Yup, and the only reason it didn't happen sooner was, as the article points out, due to the artificial stimulus provided by the government eco program, and the switch to digital. Japan Inc. is limping badly, as GW, notes, and with the government so far it debt, it cannot afford to prop it up as they have been for at least two decades. Reality is setting in -- hard.

With all of the production leaving Japan, who will have the money to buy a foreign tv? Suppose this is one way to handle the worker shortage, have very few jobs. The land of the rising sun has become the land of the setting sun. The worse is yet to arrive.

Oh good grief, Yuri, U.S. TV makers stopped making TVs in the U.S. decades ago, and... good grief! Well, manufacturing is overrated, isn't it? No? Good grief!

RIP Toshiba and Japan

Serrano, the US has natural resources to sell. Lets see coal, timber, crops, etc. Japan has very little to export except manufactured goods. Education will not work because those jobs are being outsourced as well. So tell me, where will the people go for work? Soon the trickle of money leaving Japan will be a flood. Something is going to give and it will be support for the aged, unemployed and health care. What happens when the real unemployment figure reaches 20 or more percent?

So let's have meeting about....

One of the main problems with meetings is that the most important questions are never raised. In a way, meetings are designed to shunt or avoid them.

Who needs a 55 inch TV in a 10-12 mat room in Japan?

No one but you'd be surprised at how many here do! Many young, male companies workers have them. My husband's friends all have HUGE TVs and I just don't see the point.

tmarie,

If these guys are mostly single than like a lot of innovation regarding tvs, recording ability etc have for decades been driven by something that is appreviated by 2 capitalm letters, first one is A

Any guesses for the 2nd letter...........

something that is appreviated by 2 capitalm letters, first one is A

appreviated? capitalm? I don't get it. The answer, please?

My husband's friends all have HUGE TVs and I just don't see the point.

Good for them, supporting the industry. Personally I'd be overwhelmed by those huge screens!

GW, most are married with small kids.

Presto, I am overwhelmed when we go and they're on. Between the size and their surround sound... Eeep!