Toshiba mulls 20% hike in Phl electronics output

MANILA, Philippines - Japanese engineering and electronics firm Toshiba Corp. may increase the output of its storage device manufacturing facility in Laguna by 20 percent depending on market demand.   

In a press conference yesterday, Toshiba Corp. president and chief executive officer Hisao Tanaka said its Philippine subsidiary Toshiba Information Equipment Philippines Inc. (TIP) may hike the production volume of hard disk drives and solid state drives (SSDs) in its facility in Laguna depending on demand.   

“We can expand by 20 percent more. If our capacity now is 50 million units, about 10 million units (more) is easy to achieve,” he said.   

He said there is room to raise output particularly for SSDs.   

Of the 50 million units produced in the facility, SSDs account for roughly one percent while the rest is held by hard disk drives.   

“In terms of volume, we would like to expand our production more but it very much depends on customer and whether Toshiba’s product is competitive. When that happens, we would expand,” Tanaka said.   

Increasing the production capacity, he added, will entail making an additional investment and hiring more employees.   

Toshiba Corp. has so far invested about $1 billion since TIP started operations in 1996.   

TIP currently employs over 8,000 individuals.   

It has manufactured an accumulated volume of 400 million hard disk drives, which account for 10 percent of electronic devices exported from the country. Founded in 1875 in Tokyo, Toshiba Corp. provides a wide range of  products and services on a global basis in five business domains:  energy and infrastructure; community solutions; healthcare systems and  services; electronic devices and components; and lifestyle products  and services.   

Aside from TIP, Toshiba Corp. has three other subsidiaries in the Philippines which are Toshiba (Philippines) Inc., Toshiba Logistics (Philippines) Corp. and TL Forwarding Service (Philippines) Corp.