The local portable computer division of Japan’s Toshiba Corp. is looking for profit in new places,from the pockets of online gamers.
Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., the Irvine-based unit of the Tokyo maker of computers and other electronics, recently released a handful of powerful laptops aimed at game geeks.
The laptops have bigger, brighter screens with higher resolutions, faster processors, more storage space and software that Toshiba says can allow for faster downloads of graphics.
“We are trying to address the needs for high-performance gaming in something that’s portable,” said Chris Casper, product marketing for Toshiba. “We do a lot to tweak a design for different customer groups. These are niche markets of people who value technology.”
The niche market is where Toshiba can get a premium on its laptops and see higher profits, according to Leslie Fiering, senior vice president of research for San Jose-based market researcher Gartner Inc.
“Gamers are notorious for spending top dollar to get that last ounce of performance,” Fiering said. “Because they value these features, this is where Toshiba can take their (research and development) and engineering and add some bells and whistles.”
Playing to niche markets helps Toshiba squeeze profits out of laptops, where falling costs for components and a glut of low-cost machines have forced manufacturers to duke it out on price alone.
“A company like Toshiba is big with a lot of overhead,” Fiering said. “It’s hard for them to compete at those price points and make money. They’ve got to go to areas where their investment in technology will pay off,areas where there isn’t so much competition and they can charge more.”
There’s also the matter of market share.
In the 1990s, Toshiba ruled the market for laptops, thanks in part to U.S. tariffs on screens that put it at an advantage over U.S. rivals, which had to pay more to import screens from Asia.
These days, Toshiba is No. 4 in laptops, with about half the 21% market share of No. 1 Hewlett-Packard Co., according to Framingham, Mass.-based market researcher IDC Corp.
For more on this story, see the Oct. 8 edition of the Business Journal.
