Tidbits

-Sharp posted its biggest-ever annual loss of $4.67 billion for last fiscal year. o expects to earn operating profit of $248 million in 2012 o “The tough environment will continue for us” said Tetsuo Onishi, Sharp’s GM in charge of finance. o hopes to offset continued losses with earnings from selling washing machines and other household appliances ************************************************************************************************ - Xerox gave out details of its first quarter’s financials: o total revenue up 1% to $5.5 billion o first quarter net income fell 4% o earned $269 million, down from $281 million a year earlier o total costs and expenses rose 1% to $5.19 billion o gross margin fell to 31% from 33% o services revenue up 10% o document outsourcing (FM) revenue up 7% o copier/print hardware, service & supplies revenue down 5% caused by “weak macro environment” o services revenue now represents more than half the total revenue IT services now 51%, copier/printer division = 45% Ursula Burns said; “We’re making a seismic shift in our business” from selling hardware to offering services o plans on buying back $900 million of its stock o spent $22 million on severance packages for 500 laid off employees ************************************************************************************************ - Canon’s EVP and CFO, Toshizo Tanaka, gave out details of its first quarter’s financials: o Total sales down 1.2% (all division, including cameras, LCDs, etc.) gross profit as a percentage of net sales declined 1.2% operating profit up 0.2% net income increased 11% o net sales of copiers decreased 1.8% printer hardware unit sales decreased 13% print consumable sales decreased 9% net sales of other printing devices decreased 14.9% MFP/printer division net sales decreased 8.9% • operating profit decreased 16.2% • operating profit ratio declined by 1% “we will further strengthen our product lineup and enhance our sales network boosting our corporation with leading IT vendors, and further accelerating synergies with Oce’” net sales of copiers are projected to increase 7.8% in 2012 “we lowered our full year projection for printer units sales from flat to minus 4%” operating profit projected to decrease 6.3% ************************************************************************************************ - Ricoh announced that it fell into a net loss in the last fiscal year for the first time since the company was listed. o reported a net loss of 44.6 billion yen (had a profit of 19.6 billion yen the year previous) o operating loss of 18.1 billion yen o revenue down to 1.8 trillion yen o predicts new fiscal year will produce net profit of 33 billion yen o Currect CEO of Ricoh Americas, Kevin Togashi, is returning to Japan, and replaced by Martin Brodigan, formerly CFO. ************************************************************************************************ - Lexmark gave out details on its first quarter financials: o total revenue down to $992 million from $1.034 billion last year o GAAP (generally accepted account principles) revenue of $992 million, down from $993 million a year earlier o hardware revenue down 9% o inkjet revenue down 34% o supplies revenue down 4% o gross profit margin was up to 38.4% versus 37.6% last year o operating expense up to $292 million o operating income margin of 9%, down from 10.9% o software revenue up 10% o net income fell to $61 million from $83 million o net cash was $92 million o expects revenue to decline 7-9% o will lay off 625 employees in 2012 o claims to have 16% of the worldwide A4 laser market ************************************************************************************************ - Kyocera made following announcement during its recent national dealer meeting in Las Vegas: o will focus on offering solutions for the Education, Healthcare, Financial Services vertical markets o total company’s net profit fell 32.3% to 82.9 billion yen during last fiscal o operating profit fell 32.3% to 105.58 billion yen o total sales down 6% to 1.19 trillion yen o copier division had 10% higher sales in U.S. than previous year, which is 50% less than forecast oforecast for 2012 is 15% more sales than 2011 o will launch 16 new printers and MFPs this year o within next 36 months, will launch 56 new products total o will launch an “app store” for offering embedded applications o First MFPs using biomass based toner will launch in June, 2012 o promoted that its new color MFPs have 3 meters (one for b/w, one for full color and one for only 2% color), and claims that this will allow its dealers to market a 2 cent per page color click charge ************************************************************************************************