Toshiba has announced it will stop making laptops for good.

Its complete exit from the personal computing scene was announced in a little-reported Aug. 4 press release.

Transferred unit to Sharp

The to-the-point statement said Toshiba had transferred its remaining minority stake to Sharp.

Previously, in 2018, Toshiba had sold 80.1 per cent of its business unit to Sharp, who renamed it Dynabook.

The 2018 sale of the majority of the division to Sharp was revealed to have been US$36 million.

Sharp currently sells laptops under the Dynabook name.

Toshiba retained the 19.9 per cent shares -- until this week.

In its statement, Toshiba said that Sharp had exercised its right to buy in late June the remaining shares of Dynabook held by Toshiba.

Procedures for the transfer has been completed.

“As a result of this transfer, Dynabook has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sharp,” Toshiba said.

Background

Toshiba led the laptop market through the 1990s and much of the 2000s.

The Japanese brand was often ranked among the top five PC venders.

But companies such as Lenovo, Apple, HP and Dell started building better laptops, and Toshiba’s laptop business became weaker.

The short statement by Toshiba was noteworthy for its lack of sentimentality as it did not even make a note of the company's more than three-decade involvement in the PC business.

Toshiba launched its first IBM compatible laptop computer, the T1100, in 1985.

It is considered one of the computers that fueled the growth of the laptop industry.

Top photo via Getty