« Back Toshiba’s President & CEO Shares his Management Views and Recalls Personal Experience of Living in the Philippines

Manila — Hisao Tanaka, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation, today visited his “old home” in the Philippines—Toshiba Information Equipment, Philippines (TIP), a strategic manufacturing center of hard disk drives and solid state drives for the global market. Mr. Tanaka, a 40-year veteran of Toshiba’s international business, primarily in production and procurement, shared memories of his personal experiences during the four years he lived here, including setting up TIP, and the opening ceremony, attended by the then president of the Philippines, President Fidel V. Ramos.

Mr. Tanaka also spoke on Toshiba’s global vision of creating Human Smart Communities. He explained that Toshiba Group positions Energy, Storage and Healthcare as the three main pillars of business, and aim to contribute to solving global issues and achieving a “Safe, Secure and Comfortable Society” where people always come first.

Toshiba’s Consumer Products, including flat panel TVs, notebook PCs and home appliances, contribute 18% of the company’s global turnover of $63B. The Electronics Devices & Components segment provides 24% of sales and the Infrastructure segment accounts for 51% of total sales, with businesses in three domains: Power Systems & Social Infrastructure, Community Solutions and Healthcare.

Building on this, Toshiba plans to increase its current sales of 63 billion dollars to 75 billion dollars over the next three years. Emerging markets will generate much of this growth, and are expected to account for 31% of turnover in FY2016 (to March 31, 2017), up from 27% in FY2013. Southeast Asia will be one of the main growth regions. Toshiba Group now has 80 affiliates in Southeast Asia, employing 20,000 people, approximately 10% of Toshiba’s global employment.

In the Philippines, Toshiba first opened an office in Manila in 1967 and 30 years later established TIP as a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility to meet rapidly growing demand for information equipment. TIP to date, has manufactured 400 million hard disk drives that account for 10% of all electronic devices exported from the Philippines by value. TIP started operation in October 1996 with 830 employees, and now has grown nearly 10 times to 8000 employees, the largest number of any Toshiba Group company in Southeast Asia.

Toshiba’s first project in the Philippines is the Agus6 hydro project in 1965. Since then, Toshiba has contributed to Philippines’ power generation industry with hydro, thermal and geothermal power plants in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, and with power transmission and distribution equipment for substations. Recently, Toshiba Plant Systems and Services Corporation was awarded a contract for the construction of a new coal-powered plant in Balingasag in Mindanao which is expected to come on-line by 2017. Aside from power generation projects, Toshiba has also delivered air traffic control systems to airports, provided TV transmitters and broadcasting systems to broadcasters and provided air-conditioning facilities for commercial and residential buildings.

Toshiba also focuses on inclusive growth and social entrepreneurship aimed at helping raise the quality of life and well-being of Filipinos. In the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), for instance, Toshiba provided typhoon victims with fishing boats, fishing gears and equipment. It also gave donations for shell-craft making, rehabilitation and construction of schools, provision of books and learning materials, for the construction of septic tanks, allowing the community to maintain sanitation, and the provision of water reservoirs for clean drinking water. Toshiba also works with the Ayala Foundation to support the Text2Teach project by donating notebook PCs and flat panel TVs to schools every year.

“We have already established deep, strong ties to the Philippines with TIP,” said Mr. Tanaka. “Our experience in wide-range of infrastructure development and solution and innovative products can contribute to overcoming issues the Philippines must overcome in the future. These include building a secure, stable power supply, transportation and traffic systems, disaster prevention, water treatment and much more.

“Our Basic Commitment is “Committed to People, Committed to the Future”. By living up to this, in the Philippines and everywhere we operate, by delivering innovative products and services and infrastructure solutions, we will continue to make people’s lives safer, more secure and comfortable.”

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2024