Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses



    Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a
    thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it
    will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and
    recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes
    in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product
    support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD
    products.

    HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable
    price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for
    the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer
    electronics and IT will continue to progress.

    "We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the
    so-called ´next-generation format war´ and concluded that a swift
    decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida,
    President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed
    for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass
    market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and
    Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and
    intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."

    Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of
    technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition
    content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form
    factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and
    wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make
    forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these
    convergence technologies.

    Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and
    recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses
    by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production
    of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the
    same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer
    requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of
    notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC
    business relative to future market demand.

    This decision will not impact on Toshiba´s commitment to standard
    DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players
    and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the
    development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an
    international organization with some 200 member companies, committed
    to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the
    consumer and the related industries.

    Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the
    companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD
    market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and
    DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers
    on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry,
    including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible
    collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities,
    utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.