Toyobo Co, a Kyodo textile manufacturer that thought it would diversify into something a little more high-tech to guarantee its future has found that it picked the wrong activity when it opted for floppy disk media: the company announced last week that it had ended floppy disk manufacture and sale at the end of September because retail prices have plunged in the US and the soaraway yen means it can no longer make the things profitably; but observers say that the real reason for its decision is the US Commerce Department’s determination that 3.5 disks are being sold at below fair market values in the US, where 90% of Toyobo’s output of 1m disks a month has been going; the 30 staff at the Japanese plant will move to making synthetic textiles.
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