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Toshiba

Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ49125
Source-derived summary

Toshiba Corporation (株式会社東芝, Kabushikigaisha Tōshiba; English: ) is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors, hard disk drives, printers, batteries, lighting, as well as IT solutions such as quantum cryptography. It was formerly also one of the biggest manufacturers of personal computers, consumer electronics, home appliances, and medical equipment.

The Toshiba name is derived from its former name, Tokyo Shibaura Denki K.K. which in turn was a 1939 merger between Shibaura Seisaku-sho (founded in 1875) and Tokyo Denki (founded in 1890). The company name was officially changed to Toshiba Corporation in 1978. A technology company with a long history and sprawling businesses, Toshiba is a household name in Japan and has long been viewed as a symbol of the country's technological prowess post-World War II. As a semiconductor company and the inventor of flash memory, Toshiba had been one of the top 10 in the chip industry until its flash memory unit was spun off as Kioxia in the late 2010s. The company was also relevant in consumer personal computers, releasing the first mass-market laptop in 1985 and later ranking as a major vendor of laptops; it exited the PC business in 2020 having divested it into Dynabook Inc.

Toshiba faced trouble during the 2010s amid a much-publicised accounting scandal that affected its reputation, and the bankruptcy of its subsidiary nuclear energy company Westinghouse in 2017. This forced the conglomerate to shed a number of underperforming businesses, essentially eliminating the company's century-long presence in consumer markets. After a rejection to split the company, Toshiba was purchased by a consortium led by Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) and Tolba in 2023; Toshiba turned private as a result and was delisted after 74 years from the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where it was formerly a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX 100 indices.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Toshiba” as japanese multinational conglomerate corporation. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Toshiba, Japanese and multinational.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1939, 1875, 1890, 1978—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1875. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Toshiba, Japanese and multinational providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Toshiba”, the useful work is to connect “japanese multinational conglomerate corporation” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q49125. VIAF identifies the subject as 125444253. The Library of Congress control number is n88253432. 5 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1875, 1890 and 1978.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Toshiba” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.