Not long ago, Toshiba (Tokyo) was basking in the sun, thanks in part to exploding sales in NAND flash, computers and even power plants.

Now, the company's prospects are somewhat dim. It recently scrapped its efforts in the HD DVD arena. In fact, Sony Corp.'s Blu-ray won the next-generation DVD war against Toshiba's HD DVD technology.

In addition, the NAND flash market is in a major downturn. Toshiba's digital products, including disk drives, cell phones, and TVs, are low margin or in the red. And even its nuclear power business is failing to fuel anticipated growth.

''Given the strong headwinds facing the consumer in North America and other western geographies, we believe it will be a challenging environment over the next year for Toshiba's NAND business, as well as other consumer electronics areas such as notebook PCs, small LCDs, HDDs, and cell phones,'' said David Motozo Rubenstein, an analyst with Jefferies Japan Ltd. (Tokyo).

''In its nuclear power business, we project pedestrian growth in profits over the next eight years even in our bull case scenario,'' he said in a new report. The analyst has initiated coverage of Toshiba with an ''underperform'' rating.

Hit by falling product prices, Toshiba's electronic devices unit recently posted sales of 414.6 billion yen ($3.97 billion) in the fourth quarter, down 13 percent from the like period a year ago.

In the same segment, Toshiba's operating income hit 5.2 billlion yen ($49.8 million) in the quarter. That was a decrease of 35.1 billion yen ($336.2 million) in the like period a year ago. The electronic devices segment includes the company's semiconductor and LCD products.