Toshiba to Cut Prices of Portable PCs Up to 24% : Technology: The computer company, which has reduced its production costs, hopes to regain U.S. market share.

Responding to a new strategy by rivals, Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. today will announce price cuts of 16% to 24% on its portable computers.

Last week, competitor Compaq Computer Corp. introduced new lines of low-cost personal computers and portable computers aimed at stealing market share from clone makers such as AST Research Inc. of Irvine. Hyundai Electronic Industries Inc. also cut its computer prices as much as 40%.

Michael J. Winkler, vice president and general manager of Toshiba America’s computer systems division in Irvine, said the price battle started by Compaq and Hyundai could lead to a long-expected shakeout in the crowded market for notebook computers, which weigh fewer than eight pounds.

The Toshiba price cuts, which cover all models except the most expensive color computer, are an effort to recover market share that the company has lost in the portable computer market that it pioneered, said Steve J. Lair, Toshiba’s vice president of marketing.

When industry leaders like Compaq “take their prices down to this level, then what you have is a trigger in a massive shakeout,” he said.

Toshiba America, the U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo-based Toshiba Corp., held 20% of the portable market in 1990, but that slipped to 14% in 1991, according to International Data Corp., a market research firm in Framingham, Mass.

Winkler acknowledged that Toshiba was slow to respond to market trends that set off an explosion of competition in the notebook computer market the past two years. The computer division is making a profit, he said, but, because of company policy, he declined to disclose revenue or profit figures.

The company is still No. 1 in the U.S. portable computer market. Lair said it hopes to rebound to 18% of market share in 1992, partly through low prices but also through technological innovation.

Winkler said Toshiba America, which has struggled to keep its prices competitive, has concentrated in the past 18 months on reducing costs and cutting its U.S. work force from 2,000 employees to 1,650.