August 8, 2007 – Camera and film company Fujifilm Holdings Corp. released its first quarter results last month, announcing a 280 percent increase in operating income, boosted by a soft yen and demand for digital cameras. Operating income soared to 59.82 billion yen (approx. $499.54 million USD) this quarter from April through June, up from 15.74 billion yen (approx. $131.48 million) the previous year.
Revenue rose a slight 4.8 percent, from 656.85 billion yen in the first quarter of 2006 to 688.29 billion yen (approx. $5.48 billion to $5.75 billion USD) in first quarter 2007. Fuji reported “strong performance,” according to the company’s consolidated financial results, due to impressive sales with its medical equipment and LCD display parts.
In the Fujifilm’s Imaging Solutions division, revenue totaled 144.2 billion yen (approx. $1.2 billion USD), down 3.8 percent from first quarter 2006. While digital cameras and color paper sales did well, according to Fuji, overall losses in the Imaging Solutions division were caused by sloping demand for color film and photo-processing labs. Market share was relatively stable since rival manufacturers discontinued color film.
“The color films market continued to shrink, and Fujifilm’s sales of color films decreased. However, Fujifilm was able to increase its market share due to the effectiveness of its marketing promotion activities undertaken in response to the discontinuation of color film business by competing companies,” stated the report.
Two digital cameras - the Finepix F40fd and Z5fd - that include the first generation of Fuji's face dection technology both fared well in the digital camera market. Fuji recently launched the FinePix A900 that brought high market evaluations, according to the report.
After releasing its first quarter results, Fujifilm announced its operating profit forecast for the first half of the year will be 100 billion yen (approx. $835 million USD), up 15 percent from previous forecasts. Equity-per-share rose 4.6 percent from 3.84 billion yen to 4.01 billion yen (approx. $32.03 million to $33.52 million USD).
