Toshiba Corporation announced last week in Milan that it will start to launch its new lighting business in Europe and the U.S.  By this summer, the company will set up a marketing base for new lighting business operations in the U.K., Germany and the United States, joining a French operation established earlier this month, to launch a wide range of high efficient lighting products such as LED lamps. The company also targets to further expand the business to India, Russia, Brazil, the Middle East and China in this fiscal year.

Toshiba is exhibiting at the Milan Salone, one of the world’s premier exhibitions of furniture and interior design, to introduce its new lighting business to Europe. The first exhibition of Toshiba on the Salone from April 22 to 27 at Milan’s Design Library is themed as ‘Overture’, and it will bring to life Toshiba’s philosophy on light and lighting and its importance to life.

Having produced Japan’s first light bulb in 1890, Toshiba has over a century of experience in lighting products. Today, the company’s strengths lie in bringing high levels of energy efficiency to practical lighting applications, with no compromises in light quality or ambience. The company’s LED lights, already a success in Japan include light bulbs, down lights, base lights and street lights.

“We are going to end production of incandescent lamps in 2010, in favor of energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly alternatives, such as LED lamps and fluorescent lamps.” said Mr. Kuniaki Kumamaru, General Manager of Toshiba’s New Lighting System Division. “With our new lighting system business we are reaching toward the future, inspired by the concept of “Lighting the way to warmth and harmony with people and the environment”. We are channeling our resources and energies into developing the business, and expect it to reach to the global scale.”

In Toshiba’s understanding, lighting is much more than a means to brighten. Light has an emotional power that can shape moods and atmosphere and enrich lives. Toshiba regards this quality as akari, a Japanese concept that conveys the ability of lighting to appeal deeply to our senses and emotions. At Milan Toshiba will reveal how the transition from incandescent lighting to LED lighting will create a future generation of akari.

The exhibition will feature pear-shaped light objets surrounded by arches of mirrors, arranged in a curve to represent a window connecting the past to the future. LED lights embedded in the objects will glow brighter as people approach, and pulsate as if alive. The installation offers a visual and tactile experience, and conveys Toshiba’s commitment to creating an akari culture that brings warmth to life.