Toshiba Espana SA continues to be the front runner in the portable computing field in Spain and confidently forecasts ts a 15% increase in turnover to reach $43.4m in its current fiscal year, ending this month. The 80486DX4 range continues to sell well in Spain, while corporate demand for Toshiba’s Pentium range with CD-ROM has occasionally exceeded the subsidiary’s delivery capacity, reports computing division managing director, Esteban Valdes. Toshiba Information Systems opened in Spain in 1989, and when Valdes took over 18 months ago, his first priorities were to strengthen the national network of distributors, now some 45 in number, and devote particular attention to large accounts. Valdes declared that the company’s focus in 1996 will include developing the retail distribution channel in order to boost consumer sales. He is quick to acknowledge the increasingly fierce competition in the portable market, now that firms such as Dell Computer Corp and Digital Equipment Corp have joined the pack seeking to challenge Toshiba’s hegemony, but he believes Toshiba can be first to implement innovative developments. Valdes predicts that the portable market will match the desktop market for units sold worldwide by the beginning of the next century, although he does not see the portable replacing the desktop, or certainly not for many years. As for Toshiba’s market share in Spain, Valdes claims the subsidiary captured 24.6% of the market in the July to September 1995 quarter, with its nearest, unnamed, competitor taking 11%.
