Under the agreement, Fujitsu will transfer all its HDD-related businesses and functions to the new company, including HDD design, development, manufacturing and sales. It will retain a 20 percent share for "a certain period of time", before the new HDD business unit becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary under Toshiba, according to the statement.
The deal will enable Toshiba to "reinforce" its position as a vendor of small form-factor HDDs, commonly used in consumer electronics and mobile devices, the company said.
The agreement will also pave the way for Toshiba to enter the HDD market for enterprise servers and data storage system applications, enabling the company to expand its footprint in the solid state drive (SSD) segment.
Toshiba is hoping the deal will boost its share of the overall HDD market to over 20 percent by 2015.
