Toshiba to buy Fujitsu's storage business

Toshiba Corp, Japan's biggest chipmaker, will buy Fujitsu Ltd's unprofitable computer-storage drive business to help narrow its gap with industry leader Seagate Technology in the $32.6 billion market.

Toshiba aims to buy 80 percent of the business by the quarter ending June 30 and eventually acquire full ownership, the Tokyo-based chipmaker said yesterday. The companies said they have yet to agree on a price, estimated by Deutsche Bank Group AG to be "hundreds of billions of yen".

The combination would almost double Toshiba's market share in hard-disk drives to about 16 percent, rivaling Hitachi Ltd's rank as the industry's third-largest producer. The sale allows Fujitsu to shed a business that's been unprofitable since 2007 to focus on providing computer services.