June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Toshiba Corp., which fell from the ranks of the world's biggest laptop computer makers this year, said it will debut a notebook computer that combines as a TV.

Notebook computer shipments this year will grow by 22.5 percent, compared with 12.9 percent for the market including desktops, according to market researcher IDC Corp. Toshiba expects laptops to become the control center for home- entertainment systems, according to company Vice President Atsutoshi Nishida.

Toshiba dropped from the ranks of the world's five largest laptop makers in the first quarter, according to Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC. Toshiba, which this year said it will focus on its flat-screen television business to improve profitability, declined to say when the TV-equipped notebooks will be available.

``We need to meet the requirements of different television broadcast systems worldwide,'' Nishida said in an interview. Europe, the U.S. and Japan use different broadcast formats, with which Toshiba aims to comply, he said. Nishida was visiting Computex 2004, the world's second-largest computer show, which was being held in Taipei.

Computex focused on flat-panel displays and wireless home networking as the theme for this year's show. Manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. have started offering flat- panel televisions and monitors as well as computers with audiovisual functions, bringing them into closer rivalry with consumer-electronics makers such as Sony Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.

The plan to allow video-input products such as digital camcorders and still cameras from different manufacturers to combine with televisions will need one device to control everything, Barry Lam, chairman of Quanta Computer Inc., the world's largest maker of notebook computers, said at Computex.

``There is no common platform today, and it will take a long time to develop one,'' Lam said. He declined to elaborate on how much time the development effort will take.

Toshiba shares fell 0.8 percent to 465 yen at 9:24 a.m. in Tokyo.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Patterson in Taipei at apatterson2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 3, 2004 20:31 EDT