Last week, printer and copier OEMs finished reporting their quarterly financial results for the three-month period ended on December 31, 2016. For all the Japanese OEMs, except Canon, this period is the third quarter of the fiscal year that will end on March 31, 2017. For Canon and Xerox, this period is the fourth quarter of the fiscal year that ended on December 31, 2016. HP Inc. uses a different financial calendar, so the results discussed here are for HP’s fourth quarter, which ended on October 31, 2016. HP will report is first-quarter financial results on February 22.
Actionable Intelligence currently covers financial results from traditional printer and copier OEMs including Brother, Canon, Epson, Fujifilm, HP, Konica Minolta, OKI, Ricoh, and Xerox. Our detailed coverage of how these companies are performing—especially in their printer/MFP businesses—is available only for Actionable Intelligence subscribers.
Key takeaways from these firms’ most recent financial quarters are as follows:
- In truly depressing news, we did away entirely with the positive percentages on our chart tracking year-over-year revenue and income increases or decreases in OEMs’ printing businesses (see below). The printer hardware businesses of every single OEM reported year-over-year declines in revenue and income in their latest quarter.
- As has been the case all year, the yen’s appreciation has been a major factor in the downturn seen in most Japanese OEMs’ printer businesses, but unfavorable currency exchange impacted U.S-based firms as well. Still, not all of the revenue declines are due to the impact of currency. Some companies broke out their printer business results without the FOREX impact, and of this group of firms most (Brother, Canon, Fujifilm, Ricoh, and Xerox) said their printer businesses saw declines even without the FOREX impact; however, Konica Minolta’s printing business would have seen revenue growth if not for FOREX.
- While the yen has appreciated compared with the previous fiscal year, the yen depreciated in the most recent quarter compared with earlier in the year. As a result, we saw fewer Japanese OEMs than in past quarters lower their forecasts for the remainder of the fiscal year, and we even saw a couple of firms—Brother and Epson—raise their outlooks (see table below). Ricoh was the only printer OEM to lower its full-year forecast with this quarterly results announcement.
- While we may have seen fewer negative revisions to outlooks this quarter, most OEMs that have yet to report year-end results expect to report year-over-year declines. Some firms that have already reported year-end results (Canon, HP, Xerox) issued new forecasts for the fiscal year ahead.
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