Toshiba Corp says it plans to start exports of colour notebook computers to the US, using thin-fim transistor screens from its Display Technologies Inc joint venture with IBM Corp: the company has already started marketing an 80486-based notebook computer in Europe, and says that depending on the volume of sales, either finished units or just the screens will be exported to Europe, and in the latter case assembly will be carried out in Toshiba’s plant in Bavaria; exports to the US are also to start from this month, but in the US case fully finished models will be exported because of high tariffs on the active matrix displays; the IBM-Toshiba joint venture plant in Himeji is said to be having manufacturing difficulties, with possibly only a 20% yield, and there are few suppliers for key components; Toshiba supplies the production technology while IBM has the application technology; Toshiba is a latecomer to the colour laptop market – NEC Corp, Seiko Epson Co and IBM Japan Ltd already have models available.
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