Toshiba Still Has More Money Than You
March 14, 2008

Yes, Toshiba says it will have to eat about $1 billion with the demise of the HD DVD format. But the company will still manage to turn a profit for the year. This is according to a Japanese paper, and covered by Gizmodo. Toshiba projects it will make $2.5 billion in net income, somewhat lower than earlier $2.9 billion estimates.
Still it's not as if Toshiba has completely escaped losing its shirt with losing the format war. Originally, Toshiba had said that it stood to take a $500,000 million hit with HD DVD's death.. That is a lot less than this Japanese paper is reporting. It doesn't seem like Toshiba has responded yet with comment.
In having to deal with that $1 billion hit, it has to be unlikely that Toshiba can roll out a Blu-ray player any time soon. To make some of that money back, the company will probably first invest in less risky products, such as their relatively popular laptops. Blu-ray has great support to succeed, but it's not totally there just yet.
But I think it would be good though for Blu-ray if Toshiba got on board eventually. As the format war underdog for much of last year, Toshiba still managed to get some people to buy its players. Think what the company could do by joining the winning side. And if anyone is going to figure out how to make a $200 BD player, it's Toshiba, right?

Posted by Susanne Ault on March 14, 2008 | Comments (0)