Chinese Companies Bringing Toshiba Back To Brazil

Chinese electronics conglomerate Midea Carrier is bringing back to Brazil Toshiba's home appliances line, after Hisense started selling Toshiba brand TVs in the South American market.  

"We bet on Toshiba, because it has a high brand cognitive especially among Brazil public", said by Felipe Costa, Midea Carrier Brazil president, to local media.

Five years ago, Media Carrier acquired Toshiba’s home appliance production line to expand the market share. Now Midea Carrier is going to bring the line back to Brazil, focusing on high-end consumers, mainly on three categories: refrigerator, microwave oven and washer&dryer. The manufacturer is also deciding whether the products are imported and produced locally.

Media Carrier plans to propel the home appliance business with Toshiba brand. In 2020, 20% of the sales amount comes from that area. Now, Midea’s home appliance product include refrigerator, air fryer, robot dust collector and air purifier.

"We are expecting that Midea brand is used in middle level and Toshiba is responsible for high-end product", Felipe Costa said.

The company forecasts revenue of more than 3 billion reais ($590 million) this year, up 20 percent from 2020, with 30 percent coming from household appliances. Midea Carrier expects to be in top3 of this industry, in which Toshiba occupied 25%-30% on total revenue.

Midea Carrier has factories in Manaus and Canoas but still imports machines and refrigerators.

The product that helps on the sales amount for Midea Carrier is Toshiba televisions, its Chinese gene built in but Brazil element added. Chinese Hisense company, which purchased Toshiba brand rights in TVs, cooperated with Brazil Multilaser which also adopt Toshiba as a premium brand.

Toshiba, a Japanese conglomerate, is facing a serious crisis due to accounting irregularities in its nuclear power plant business when it tried to sell its electronics and home appliances business.  The result is that Toshiba sold off several businesses to offset its $1 billion loss.