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After Japan's record earthquake and tsunami on March 11, few companies in the nation were in worse shape than Toshiba Corp. (6502)

The producer of semiconductors, computers, and televisions can be Japan's largest maker of nuclear power plants, current Fukushima crisis putting that industry in peril, Toshiba's share price plunged 27 percent within the week following your disaster, so that it is the second-worst performer for the benchmark Nikkei index. Ever since then, the stock has rebounded, gaining 17 percent since March 18. On May 10, Tokyo-based Toshiba said profit for your year would climb with a record 140 billion yen ($1.7 billion).

Toshiba can thank Apple Inc. (AAPL) Ceo Jobs due to the recovery, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its May 30 issue. Japan company could be the world's second-largest producer of Nand flash chips along with a major supplier for Apple's ipad 2 Soft cases, as well as plants in central and southern Japan making those chips were largely unaffected by the March disaster. Toshiba Mobile Display, a completely owned subsidiary, also makes small LCD panels for products like the iPhone.

The increase of Nand and small-panel demand from smartphones and tablets can help support an extended profit recovery for Toshiba,CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets analysts Christian Dinwoodie and Nanako Imazu wrote inside a May 12 report.

Chips and displays aren't the one products bringing about Toshiba's revival. The firm ranks fifth among the world's PC vendors, and even though industry leaders for example Hewlett-Packard Co., Acer Inc. and Dell Inc. struggle with falling shipments, Toshiba's computer business, led by its Portege laptops, is on something on the roll.

PC Shipments

Toshiba's PC shipments grew 5.3 % worldwide within the first quarter, based on data from market research company Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut. With the top-five PC vendors, only Lenovo Group Ltd. grew faster than Toshiba while shipments from HP, Acer, and Dell shrank. Japan company did best of all within the U.S., where shipments jumped 10.9 percent, second to Apple's 18.9 percent "ipad 2 keyboard Bluetooth"

Post-tsunami spending in Japan could give Toshiba an extra boost. Fumio Muraoka, corporate senior executive vp, told reporters on May 9 that the company expects to learn from reconstruction requirement for TVs, refrigerators, and air conditioning units in today's fiscal year. Toshiba also sees demand growth in businesses for example water treatment systems and electrical substations in the community hardest hit by way of the disaster.

Income

For many its strength, Toshiba's semiconductor business has lower profit margins than those of South Korean rivals, largely considering that the strong yen makes Japan a expensive area to operate chip-making facilities.

Toshiba is additionally struggling in a few of that other businesses. It lags behind market leaders Western Digital Corp. and Seagate Technology Plc in disc drives, and even though it truly is strong in Nand flash, it's weak in specialized semiconductors for example logic chips.

The non-Nand business has been bleeding a final few years, said David Rubenstein, an analyst in Tokyo at MF Global FXA Securities Ltd. They have to buckle down and reduce costs, he said, by outsourcing production to foundries and selling low-margin businesses.

Another issue is the long term on the nuclear business. In the meantime, the firm can depend on a backlog of orders from China, though with the near future of nuclear power uncertain, Toshiba is making moves into other energy sectors. On May 10, it signed a primary deal with Charlotte, North Carolina-based clean- energy company Babcock & Wilcox Co. (BWC) in order to develop thermal and solar technologies.

Also, it is looking to say hello to the fast-growing marketplace for smart-grid equipment for electricity networks. On May 19, Toshiba announced a $2.3 billion deal to order Landis&Gyr AG, a Swiss electronic-metering company.