Toshiba has decided to narrow the range of mobile hard disk products to focus on main models, optimize research and design, and evetually shift away from the hard disk business and channel resources into solid state drives. The Japanese company is currently applying structural reforms, hoping to return to profitability.

Demand for HDD is weakening in the PC market, but remains strong in the enterprise market. Toshiba is accelerating a shift of management resources to enterprise HDD, and is restructuring its business to reinforce its profit base. As it enhances development of near-line HDD and enterprise applications, Toshiba will narrow the range for mobile products to focus on main models, optimize research and design, and integrate development resources. The company plans to improve profitability by further reducing component costs and, in the North American market, where the business is now in deficit, minimize sales for B2C mobile products.

Toshiba also plans to channel resources into solid state drives (SSD), which are expected to transform the storage market and shift it away from HDD, and to further bolster the competitiveness of its storage products business by optimizing design and development and creating added-value products.

Toshiba will also introduce an early retirement program for its employees working in the HDD business in Japan as part of its restructuring. The program, which is expected to cover approximately 150 workers, will run from the end February tuntil the beginning of March.

Toshiba will post an operating expense of approximately 4 billion yen for structural reform of its HDD business in FY2015 (fiscal year ending March 2016).

Following this structural reform, Toshiba's HDD business will reduce total fixed expenses by more than 10 billion yen in FY 2016, against forecast fixed expenses of 50 billion yen for FY2015.

Besides the HDD business, Toshiba widened its full-year loss forecast by 29 percent as the Japanese industrial group sells businesses in the wake of the recent accounting scandal.

The net loss is expected to be a record 710 billion yen ($6 billion) in the fiscal year ending March, Toshiba said in a statement on Thursday.

Revelations that management was complicit in padding profits for almost seven years has rocked the conglomerate, prompting writedowns and the departure of executives.

The Japanese company also said Thursday it was offering buyouts or reassignment to 90 health-care workers, while an unknown portion of its executives and managers will have to take pay cuts from this month.

In addition to workforce cuts in the lifestyle business, the company has said previously it will reduce its corporate division by 1,000 people and chip operations by 2,800 workers.

It?s in the process of hiving off assets. Muromachi has said Toshiba is considering selling a majority stake in Toshiba Medical Systems to outside investors.

The company is also pondering the sale of property and investments, after earlier offloading its stake in elevator maker Kone Oyj.