Toshiba to face further setbacks as Apple, Amazon and Google vie for firm's memory chip unit

Toshiba is likely miss its October-December 2016 quarterly earnings report deadline on 11 April, sources told Reuters on Friday (March 31).

The third delay for Toshiba is said to be because the firm's auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata LLC, may have queries regarding its earnings results for the year through March 2016.

Toshiba had recently missed its earnings report for the second time on 15 March, causing the company's shares to fall by 12% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Another delay could put the firm's shares at a strong risk of being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Toshiba has also put its NAND flash memory unit for sale in an attempt to recuperate a projected loss of ¥1tn ($9bn, £7.1bn), according to a report by the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Tech giants Amazon, Apple, and Google have joined a pool of interested investors including US based Western Digital and private equity firm Silverlake Partners.

Offers for the unit have gone up to ¥2tn, according to the Nikkei Business Daily.

The memory chips are utilised in a diverse array of consumer electronics, including mobile phones, wearable devices and industrial robots.

The Japanese electronics conglomerate had announced on 29 March that it intends to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for its nuclear division under US-based Westinghouse Electric. The bankruptcy filing process may be undertaken as soon as early April.

Toshiba has been in hot water ever since its involvement in an accounting scandal in late 2016, when profits from 2008 to 2016 were found to be overstated.