Copier industry rocked by sales slump
November 4, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Dealers & Channel, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
Third quarter results are out for a number of copier vendors, and things look pretty bleak — not to anyone’s surprise. Look at these numbers:
- Canon operating profit was down 54% year-over-year and sales down 22% (in spite of good camera sales)
- Ricoh profits were down 69%, and
- Xerox profit was down a little over 50% and sales by nearly 20%.
Konica Minolta and Kyocera also reported fall-offs in profit and have readjusted their expectations for the year and have lowered profit predictions considerably.
We can assume that other, more highly diversified companies (like Sharp and Toshiba) are seeing similar issues.
And depressed sales may continue. A Reuters article quotes a stock analyst who says, “There’s a lot of pent-up IT upgrade demand among companies. But copiers and printers lag other things like PCs among their priorities.”
If your company is in the market for a new copier/MFP and you have the cash or credit available, this may seem like a good time to negotiate and buy a new one. There’s a lot of inventory in the pipeline, and thanks to frequent updates, dealers may well have machines they want to find a home for. But be aware of two issues: The declining dollar (and rising yen) makes for higher absolute costs of goods. And copier dealers are experienced at making offers that look a lot better than they really are.
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Tags: copiers, industry, printers, sales slump
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