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Japan's Fujifilm sees profits skyrocket eightfold
2007-07-27
Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp. said Friday its quarterly net profits jumped more than eightfold on strong demand for camera phone lenses, flat panel display materials and medical products. A weaker yen supported overseas earnings while the absence of the heavy restructuring charges incurred a year earlier boosted the bottom line. The group has been overhauling its business in response to an industry shift to digital photography, including thousands of job cuts. Net profit rose to 40.97 billion yen (344 million dollars) in the three months to June, the first quarter of the fiscal year, up from 4.81 billion a year earlier when it had spent 27.35 billion yen on restructuring. Operating profits climbed almost threefold to 59.82 billion yen from 15.74 billion while revenue grew by 4.8 percent to 688.29 billion yen. One negative factor was the high price of raw materials such as aluminium and silver but this was more than offset by rising sales and the weakness of the yen, the company said. Fujifilm said it saw rising sales of colour paper and FinePix digital cameras, as well as medical systems and lenses for camera-equipped mobile telephones. Multi-function colour photocopiers also did well, particularly in China. The company raised its net profit forecast for the six months to September to 62 billion yen from 51 billion and its operating profit target to 100 billion yen from 87 billion, on revenue of 1.40 trillion yen. Second quarter conditions "are expected to be generally positive," it said. But it left unchanged its full-year forecast of a net profit of 120 billion yen and operating profit of 200 billion yen on revenue of 2.85 trillion yen. Last year, the company announced it would slash 5,000 jobs worldwide in its film and camera business and shift production of digital cameras to China as it weathers tough competition. Rival Konica Minolta has also been forced to diversify, stopping making all cameras and camera film to focus on more profitable optics and medical imaging activities. Nikon, another iconic Japanese camera maker, decided to end production of nearly all film cameras to focus on digital technology.
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