Does Hisense Own Toshiba? Here’s What You Need To Know

Toshiba is a Japanese corporation known for manufacturing electronics in multiple product lines, including kitchen appliances and TVs like the Toshiba M550KU LED 4K UHD Smart TV. While the brand was relatively well-known in America, it was severely struggling to stay afloat back in 2017 when it sold off Toshiba Visual Solutions, its television subsidiary. The party that snagged the subsidiary for a whopping $113.6 million was Hisense Electric. Hisense, founded in 1969, is headquartered in China and, at the time of the purchase, was well-known in other parts of the world like China and South Africa, where it’s the number one TV manufacturer, but hadn’t yet gained notoriety in Europe and North America.

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Toshiba still owns a small stake in Toshiba Visual Solutions. It sold off 95% of the company to Hisense, retaining a mere 5%. Selling off the television manufacturing arm of the company might have been the best for Toshiba, since it had seen a loss of $54.1 million the year before the sale. While Hisense doesn’t own any other parts of Toshiba, it is the real owner behind one of the biggest TV brands. Hisense still makes its own TVs, but being able to manufacture and sell another brand, especially one with such recognition from consumers, increases its market share.

This purchase is similar to Hisense buying the licensing to the Sharp Corporation’s North and South American TV business. While Sharp later sued Hisense for manufacturing and selling subpar TVs under its brand name, the Toshiba brand seems to be doing well under Hisense.

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This isn’t the first time Toshiba has sold off a part of its company. China’s Midea Group purchased just a little over 80% of the stake in Toshiba’s home appliance subsidiary in 2016 for $473 million. While a different company owns these arms of Toshiba, they still manufacture the products with the Toshiba brand. The Midea Group came to an agreement to continue producing appliances under the Toshiba Lifestyle Products & Services Corporation (TLSC) name. 

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Toshiba also sold off many of its other business ventures, including mobile phones and medical systems. Some time after that, the company established a committee to look into the prospects of going private, delisting itself from stock exchanges. In 2023, Toshiba confirmed that Japan Investment Corp (JIC) was taking it over for $14 billion.

The Toshiba company is a giant conglomerate with plenty left under its ownership. Just the American branch on its own has multiple subsidiaries it oversees. There’s the Toshiba International Corporation, for starters. It’s headquartered in Houston, Texas, employs over 1,000 employees, and produces industrial equipment and motors. Toshiba America Business Solutions distributes toner, printers, and copiers. There’s also Toshiba America Energy Systems Corporation that makes steam and hydraulic turbines and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc that produces data storage devices and semiconductors.

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